


Tattooed to Misaki

by words_are_like_colors



Series: Tattooed to Misaki [1]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: AU, Fluff, Jungle, M/M, Misaki is part of Homra gang, Saruhiko is a tattoo artist, Sarumi Fest 2016, Slowish build, Tattoos, cathedral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-07-22 14:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_are_like_colors/pseuds/words_are_like_colors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saruhiko's life is a worldpool of dispare and boredom until a short adorable redhead bardgeds into <em>Fushimi's</em> demanding for a tattoo for the gang he recently joined. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “30,000 yen for the tattoo.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this chapter is a little short but I'm submitting it for Sarumi week. I've haven't had enough time because I'm writing more than one fic.

**“YOU WON!!! GREAT JOB ON BEATING SUKUNA GOJO!!”** flashed across the screen. 

_Tsk. Easier done than said._ Fushimi Saruhiko chuckled softly to himself. _That kid was weak. I've only been playing this for two weeks and I've beaten a top 5er._ Almost on command, a message on the side of his screen popped up. 

**CONGRATULATIONS. You are now in the top five. Prize will be inclosed in the private message box.**

Other messages popped up. 

**Fushimi Saruhiko beat Sukuna Gojo at J-Cube so he is now in top five based on points in J-Cube.**

**Fushimi Saruhiko beat Sukuna Gojo at J-Cube so he is now a top fiver based on points in JUNGLE.**

**Fushimi Saruhiko beat Sukuna Gojo at J-Cube so he is now a top fiver based on beating a top fiver in JUNGLE**

_Too easy,_ he thought. 

His finger moved to click on the private message box with the red little 1 above it before he heard talking and hesitated. 

"Yata.... Can't we just go home? Why do we have to do this now?" Fushimi glanced up from his laptop and glanced out the window of his shop. A fat blond was trying to pull a kid down the street. 

"No, Kamamoto. I want to do this now!" The redhead tore his hand away from the fatty and quickly ran in Fushimi's direction. _Tsk._ Fushimi stood up and opened the door before the redhead could open it himself. He could hear the faint call of the fatty yelling that he was going to head back on his own.

"What do you want? You're too young to get a tattoo or a piercing without a parent or guardian's approval. You might as well leave," he rumbled off quickly… something he said at least five times a day. Fushimi looked down at the kid, who was a few inches shorter. 

The kid growled a little and looked up defiantly at the man. His amber eyes gleamed a little in the faint light that the store was producing. "Oi! I'm twenty! I'm no kid and I came here to get a tattoo tonight!" 

"First of all, you could’ve asked politely. Second of all, I need to see ID." He crossed his arms and leaned on the side of the doorway, purposing not letting him in. 

"I don't need ID. This isn't a club or something," the redhead scoffed. 

Fushimi arched his eyebrow a little. "So you're saying you don't have ID." He smirked, seeing the boy grumble and look down. He obviously didn't have ID. 

"Whatever. I just want a tattoo--and get it over with." After a pause the boy started to press a few buttons on his watch. _A PDA watch… I made a few of those. He must of bought it, but we never met..._ The boy cursed. "I can't get this to work! A library card has birth dates on them, right?" 

_Tsk._ "Let me do it.” Fushimi quickly reached out and wrapped his fingers around the boy's wrist. The redhead protested for a moment, but the man quickly brought up the library card and looked at the hologram. "Yata Misaki, July 20th, 1993," he drawled, letting go of the boy's wrist. 

"Don't say that," Misaki grumbled, pushing his way past Fushimi and into the shop. 

"Hm? Your name? Mi~Sa~Ki~," he drew out teasingly, closing the door behind him. "Such a girly name." Misaki sent him a soft glare and leaned his skateboard up against the wall, the fire symbol shimmering in the store’s lights. 

"I know. Stop it.” He fell into the chair that people usually sit on to get tattoos. Yata produced a piece of paper from his pocket. "I want you to do this." 

Fushimi took a step forward and took the paper from him. A symbol was printed on the paper. "A HOMRA gang member, I see. You don't look that strong. Isn't your leader's name Mikoto Suoh?" 

"Hell yeah, he is. He's the greatest person ever!" Misaki nodded and he pulled back his shirt collar. "We’re all required to get tattoos of our symbol. Mine is going to be here." He tapped his collar with a finger. 

Fushimi sighed and sat in his chair. “You know you’re supposed to come in and ask about making an appointment for this first,” he drawled, and turned around, rummaging through his stuff to get what he was looking for. 

“I-I could come later. Sorry…” Fushimi noticed that Misaki was trying to be more sensible. He sighed and turned back around. “I'll do it now since you're here. It's not like anyone comes in anyways.” 

“Oh… okay.” Misaki nodded. “I haven't got your name yet, you know.” 

“Do you need one?” Fushimi rolled his eye a little and snapped his fingers. “Shirt off if you want this.” 

A dark red blush bloomed on the redhead’s cheeks. “Huh?!” He moved back in his seat a little, trying to get away from the artist. 

Fushimi clicked his tongue. “No, you idiot. Take it off so I can do the tattoo you wanted.” 

“O-oh,” Misaki grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. “Is this better?” he asked, a light blush still hovering on his cheeks. 

Fushimi glanced at him for a moment and went back to prepare his tools, but he did a double take and stared at Misaki for a moment. The redhead had his shirt wound up in his hands and was shifting a little as he looked at the needles, not seeing Fushimi’s eyes traveling up his body. _He has a good body for a shortie like him…. not at all like his baggy clothes or pathetic commands suggest._ Misaki was indeed strong for his size, it was quite clear that he skateboarded a lot. 

Fushimi pulled his eyes away from him and leaned over the shorter man. He gently put his arm on Misaki’s chest as he started to copy the image onto his collar bone as a sketch. Fushimi tried to ignore the heat coming from Misaki, both body heat and the heat that all Homra members faintly produce. 

Fushimi finished the sketch quickly and let Misaki sit up. “Here.” Fushimi tossed a mirror into Misaki’s chest for him to look at it. 

Misaki smiled as he admired the sketch, his amber eyes sparkling. “This is perfect! Once you color it in and outline it and whatever, it’ll look just like everyone else's!” 

Fushimi didn't answer at first, hiding the small spark of heat that rose in his chest as Misaki praised his work. He took the mirror away from him, struggling a bit because Misaki wanted to keep looking at his sketch; Fushimi snapped that he still had to do the outline. 

* * *

Yata only whimpered a few times--okay, more like “almost started crying,” but he wasn't to going to admit that--while the tattoo artist outlined and colored in the tattoo. 

“Keep this on for at least 6 hours. When you take it off, wash the tattoo carefully with soft soap.” The man taped a sort of pad onto Yata’s chest and let him sit up. 

“And if I don't?” 

The artist just gave him a look and clicked his tongue. “It might get infected. It is an open wound.” 

“Oh…” Yata slipped his shirt on and nibbled on his bottom lip. “So…..” 

“¥30,000.” 

“Huh?” 

“30,000 yen for the tattoo.” He finished putting his stuff away. 

Yata nodded. “O-okay.” He popped up his card on his PDA Watch, then cringed. He was running out of money fast. _I need to get a second job or I'll be broke. Dammit._

“Something wrong?” Yata looked up from his PDA Watch to see the guy watching him. He shook his head. 

They made the transfer quickly and Yata stood up. “Can I have your name? Please? If anyone else wants one, I could ask them to come to you.” 

The artist was silent for a moment before he muttered, “Fushimi Saruhiko.” 

“Saru? Like monkey?” Yata chuckled. 

Saruhiko clicked his tongue. “Not my choice. My father was an asshole.” 

“Oh….” Yata nodded. “I-I guess I will be going now! See you soon!” He flashed a small smile. 

“Whatever.” Saruhiko stood up. “Bye, Misaki.” 

“Don't call me that!” the skater snipped back at him, but the tattoo artist just smirked and waved as he left.


	2. “Whoa, Saru. You’re in JUNGLE?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YAY! Chapter 2 is out. Thank you for the comments. Comments make me so happy. Ok so here we go: Saru and Misaki meet again but today is Sunday which means no tattoos today. Oh well. But Misaki has something else planed. Misaki wants Saruhiko to check out his gang hangout, Homra Bar.

  
**Once again, congratulations on reaching 5th place in JUNGLE. Prizes include: ¥200,000, access to: test new games, VIP lobby/chat room, making of new missions, and all expenses will be payed when doing missions/monthly JUNGLE parties.**

Fushimi sighed and nibbled a little on his shirt collar, bored. He looked through the other notifications in his inbox and clicked on the “unread.”

 **JUNGLE monthly party.**  
**Sunday, November 6th**.  
…  
The rest of the message was just times and information on attire and events, but one thing stuck out.  
**Bring a date.**

_A date, huh? Not happening._ He frowned at the message, not really interested… Although, he thought, it could actually be a good change for once. The artist stood up from his bed and walked into the kitchen, dropping his laptop onto the counter and grabbing an energy bar to curb his hunger for a little bit–but when he went to grab the bar, he just grabbed empty air. _Shit. I have to get more._

He frowned again and shuffled into his room to put his knife harness and jacket on before he left. 

Fushimi never left the house without his knives, ever since he had left school. Apparently it’s pretty easy to jump a skinny nerd like him, so every other week a gang decided to take advantage of this. Hikawa was a small gang, but ruthless to people who opposed them; when Fushimi was walking home one night, a few gang members were hiding in an alleyway to jump him. The artist was pinned to the wall, and one of the gang members managed to empty his wallet. The others were beating Fushimi up when a bright light suddenly shined down on them. It was amazing. The air prickled with sparks as a man walked up, his red hair glowing despite the darkness of the night. In a short flash, all of the Hikawa members ran off, leaving just Fushimi and the man still standing in the alley. The man just chuckled. “Wow. They ran off quick.” The artist stared at the man for a second more before running away.

The man was Mikoto Suoh. 

* * *

Ding! 

The doors slid shut behind Fushimi, the plastic bag in his hand rustling as the boxes of energy bars jostled around in it. Bright midday light blinded him for a moment before he started down the sidewalk, sticking to the shadowy side of the street. A cyclist on his phone zoomed past, nearly hitting him. Fushimi clicked his tongue and glared after the biker. 

“Saruhiko?” 

Fushimi glanced up to see the redhead from yesterday. Misaki was wearing a great big smile. “Saru! We were just going to go to the shop to see you.” Misaki bounced up to Fushimi, his hand wrapped around some stranger. 

He raised his eyebrow. “Who’s this?” Fushimi glanced at the guy. 

The man managed to wriggle his wrist out of the skater’s grasp. “I thought we were going to that tattoo shop you were talking about,” he mumbled to Misaki, not answering Fushimi’s question. The man wore his hoodie so that you couldn’t see his eyes, only the long strands of blond hair framing his face. 

Misaki glanced at Fushimi, then sighed. “This is Fushimi Saruhiko, the tattoo artist.” He smiled again. “This is Eric Solt. We were wondering if you could do the tattoo for him.” 

“The shop is closed on Sunday. Don’t you know most businesses are closed Mi~Sa~Ki? It says it on the window.” Fushimi smirked and leaned down to tease the skater. 

Misaki gave him a glare. “I forgot. Okay? I was going to ask to get an appointment this time.” 

“ _Tsk_. Of course you were.” He straightened up and looked at Eric, who had slipped his PDA out of his pocket. 

He glanced at Fushimi and put it away. “Am I going to get it now, or not?” 

“No, not today. Tuesday afternoon.” Fushimi moved his bag to the other hand. “Are we done here?” He desperately wanted to be home, not standing in the middle of a sunny sidewalk. 

Misaki frowned. “I guess…” He looked like he wanted to say something else, so Fushimi prompted with a small nod. “Could we go to a cafe or something?” His face lit up red like Christmas lights as the question slipped from his lips. 

Fushimi stared at him for a moment, confused as to why he would invite him, of all people. “Why?” he deadpanned. 

Eric had walked off a little, but both of them ignored that as Misaki answered hesitantly. “I-I well….. I wanted to talk to you more… so I could get to know you more….” He tried and failed to hide his embarrassment behind his beanie, which he pulled down over his face a little. 

The artist looked at him in surprise. Nobody ever wanted to know anything about him. _Someone wants to get to know me? If this is a prank or dare, I’m fucking stabbing him in the face. “Okay? So?”_

Misaki didn’t meet his eyes. “So whatever. Nevermind. It’s not like you would care about me anyways.” He bit his lip hard and turned to go back to his friend when Fushimi put his hand on his shoulder. 

“Fine. We can go talk somewhere.” 

Misaki’s eyes lit up and a smile returned to his lips. “Ok! I’ll tell Eric.” The skater went over to his blond friend. 

Fushimi watched as Eric nodded to Misaki and waved goodbye to Fushimi. Misaki came back over. “Where do you want to go?” 

“Home,” he mumbled and started to walk. “Just don’t make this a waste of time for me.” 

“I won’t.” Misaki walked beside Fushimi back home. 

Saruhiko placed his shopping bag on the counter and faced Yata. 

Yata blushed slightly, realizing that they were in his house. He glanced around. “Your apartment is so…. bland.” 

Saruhiko glared at him a little, pulling off his jacket. Yata watched him. Saru let the jacket slip off of his shoulders, revealing a knife harness that framed his body perfectly. Yata trailed after the artist as he walked into the bedroom and opened the closet. Saru undid the harness and put in it’s case. The skater sat down on the bed and watched him.

The artist glanced at him, then snapped, “I didn’t invite you in here.” 

Yata’s eyes went wide. “I-I’m sorry. I’ll just go into the living room then….” He went to get up when Saruhiko just waved his hand, motioning him to stay. “O-okay?” 

Saruhiko grabbed a v-neck from the closet and shut the doors. Yata watched as Saru retreated into the bathroom. 

Once the bathroom door closed, Yata jumped up. He glanced around the room. There was nothing, except for a bed, nightstand and closet. _Wow. This guy seems to have no interests_. His room was pretty much the opposite. Yata’s room was covered in posters, old skateboards, video games and clothes. _Chu, what does he do all day? Stare at the wall?_

The skater spotted a notebook on the night stand. “I’ll just leave my number…. I doubt he will ask me for it,” Yata muttered under his breath, and he picked up the pen and flipped to the back page so as not to see anything that was inside. He quickly scrawled his number and name. 

The door opened and Yata squeaked in surprise; he fell back onto the bed. 

“Klutz,” the man sighed. Yata didn’t hear his next words as he stared up at him. Saruhiko was wearing a black v-neck that fitted perfectly to his body. His skinny hips could be clearly seen beneath the fabric, which made a blush rise up Yata’s neck. Saru’s sleeves were rolled up to reveal dark reddish-purple wristbands.

“You don’t have tattoos,” Yata blurted out before thinking. 

Saruhiko just raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t the answer to my question.” 

“What was your question……?” 

“You wanted to go somewhere to talk. Where do you want to go?” Saruhiko clicked his tongue in annoyance. 

Yata itched the back of his neck and stood up. “Do you have a laptop or something? I forgot the address.” 

Saruhiko walked out of the bedroom for a moment then came back with the laptop. “Here.” He dropped it in Yata’s lap. “Don’t mess with or delete anything. Just look up what you have to look up.”

“Okay.” Yata nodded and opened the laptop. A green box was right in the middle of the screen, as if Saruhiko had forgotten to close out of the program.

 **JUNGLE monthly party.**  
…  
**Bring a date.**

“Whoa, Saru. You’re in JUNGLE?” The skater’s eyes widened. Saru went to say something, but Yata cut him off. “That’s so cool!” 

“Uh….” Saruhiko was taken aback about the comment. “Yeah. I am. Fifth place, to be exact.” 

Yata’s eyes sparkled and his smile widened. “That’s awesome, Saru! You must be really smart to get that high up.” He seemed to completely forget about looking up the address. “It says here that you can go to a party. Who are you bringing?” 

Saruhiko shrugged. “Might not even go.” 

“So you don’t have a date? Bring me!” 

“What?!” The artist took a step back, not expecting the question. 

Yata beamed up at him, unaware that the word date usually meant a couple’s date, not just two guys hanging out somewhere.

“No. You’re not going.” Saruhiko shook his head and snached up his laptop. He quickly closed out of the program and opened a search engine. “Look up when you need to.” 

Yata scowled at him, but he had walked out of the room. _Fine. If you wanna be that way._ Yata quickly looked up the place and wrote the address down before closing the laptop and heading out into the living room. 

He walked in on Saru eating an energy bar. As if this was a personal offense to the skater, he walked up and took it from him. “What are you doing?” Saruhiko raised an eyebrow.

“You should eat something better than this.” Yata glared up at him. 

“You don’t have to scold me. You aren’t my boyfriend or whatever.” Saruhiko took it back from him and finished it. 

Yata blushed slightly and tried not to show it. “Here.” He pushed the address into his hand and grabbed his skateboard. 

Saruhiko rolled his eyes and opened the door once he got his boots on. “I have a car.” 

The skater nodded and walked out, spotting the car. He hopped over and got in once Saru opened the door. 

* * *

“This place?” Fushimi stared at the building. 

“Yep!” Misaki nodded. “Come on. We don’t bite.” 

“Mikoto might,” Fushimi said under his breath as Misaki opened the front door of Homra Bar. 

Right when Fushimi walked in, he was assaulted with the smell of ash and alcohol. A shiny polished bar sat across the back wall of the room. A few people sat there, and one person made Fushimi freeze. Mikoto Suoh. 

“Saru? What’s wrong?” Misaki was looking up at him. 

Fushimi pushed in his glasses and shook his head. “Nothing. So…. This is where your gang meets?” 

“Yep!” he piped up. “But it’s a bar, so anyone can come in here.” 

Fushimi nodded and gazed at the rest of the room. The blond man from earlier, Eric, was on a black couch with some redhead fussing over him. A bartender stood at the bar. He waved at Fushimi and called across the room, “Hi. You must be Fushimi. Yata told us about you.” 

“Of course he did.” Fushimi sighed and walked forward. He glanced at Mikoto before sitting down, leaving a seat between them. 

The bartender must’ve noticed and let out a laugh. “Don’t look so worried. Mikoto is all bark and no bite.” 

“I wouldn’t guarantee that.” Mikoto took a drag from his cigarette. 

The bartender just shook his head and grabbed a couple of glasses from behind the counter. “I’m Kusanagi Izumo.” 

Misaki was sitting on Fushimi’s other side. “So this is Homra! Mikoto is our king.” 

Fushimi nodded but kept his gaze on the bar top, so as not to look at the king. He only looked up when two glasses were set down, one in front of him and the other in front of Misaki. “The usual for Yata and a surprise for Fushimi.” The bartender smiled. “Enjoy!” 

The artist muttered a thank you and took a sip of the blue drink he received. It wasn’t that bad. 

“Oh. You’re awake, Anna?” Fushimi glanced over to see a little lion standing in the stairway leading upstairs. “Did we wake you?” Kusanagi asked. 

The lion shook her head and walked over to the bar. She hopped up onto the stool between Mikoto and Fushimi. Her hood fell off to reveal a little girl with pure white hair. “Hello.” She looked at Fushimi. “You’re Misaki’s friend.” 

Fushimi didn’t know what to say at first, other than to ask why there was a little girl in a gang. “Uh… We’re not friends.” 

Anna took a sip from the juice Kusanagi had put on the counter. “The way he talked about you made it look that way.” She put the drink down. 

“What did you tell her, Misaki?” Fushimi looked at the redhead. 

Misaki blushed a little. “Nothing much. Just that you did my tattoo for me and stuff…” 

“Nothing much?” The blond who was sitting on the couch scoffed. “We had to force you to go home and sleep or you would’ve been talking about him all night. And when you got here this morning you still just kept talking about him–” he made his voice higher to mock Misaki’s voice– “‘He’s so cool!’ ‘I want to see him again!’ ‘We should invite him over!’ The only thing that shut you up was King asking if he was your boyfriend.” 

“Really?” Fushimi directed his attention to the scarlet-faced skater next to him, who was currently downing his drink. “And what was your answer to your king?” 

“Shut up.” Misaki mumbled into his hand as he wiped his lips off. 

The artist smirked, finally feeling relaxed enough here to tease him. “What was your answer, Mi~Sa~Ki?” He let each syllable draw out. 

Misaki didn’t say anything, and the deep rumble of Mikoto’s voice answered instead, “‘He isn’t my boyfriend. That would be pretty sweet if he was though.’” 

Fushimi actually blushed slightly at this and looked at the one in the middle of this conversation. Misaki had pulled his beanie completely over his face. A few words could be heard, but it sounded more like muttering. Kusanagi laughed slightly before speaking. “Yata, go make something for us to eat.” Misaki took his advice and ran out of the room to go hide in the kitchen, leaving Fushimi stranded with the gang members. 

“So… Fushimi. You look a little uncomfortable.” The bartender leaned against the counter. 

“I’m not.” 

“You’re lying,” Anna said. 

“No I’m no–” Fushimi glanced down at her and stopped. Anna was holding a red marble in front of her eye and was staring at the artist through it; it would’ve looked more serious if she wasn’t wearing a lion sleeping onesie-thing. 

Anna spoke again. “I noticed it when I came down here.” Her voice was light, but it held the kind of wisdom that usually comes with age. 

“I was just curious about your powers.” Okay. That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the main thing concerning him. 

Anna didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t giving a complete explanation–or she just decided to let him go. Kusanagi took a cigarette out of the box and flicked his fingers in front of it, lighting the stick. “I am too, actually. The power seems to travel down the gang members in Homra. I couldn’t find anything when I tried to look it up, but I stopped trying once my search had reached Scepter 4, an spy and programming agency that works for the government. I wouldn’t mess with Scepter 4, unless I wanted to be under the command of…. What’s his name?” 

“Munakata Reisi,” Mikoto informed. 

“Yes. Him. I’ve heard stories about the people he deals with. They might be fake. Who knows?” Kusanagi finished. 

Fushimi nodded and finished off his drink. “I’ll guess I’ll find Misaki. Thank you.” The artist got out of his seat and quickly went into the kitchen.


	3. “Pineapples.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha Misaki is a little angry that his friends keep joking with him about Saru while Saru is still uncomfortable with Mikoto. Eric gets his tattoo finally.

Yata angrily kicked the oven door shut. _What’s wrong with everyone?! Do they have to spoil everything for me? Just because I think he’s hot doesn’t mean they have to tell him everything!_ He plopped down in a chair and watched the oven, not taking his apron off.

“Misaki?”

“What?” he huffed, not moving his eyes away from the oven. He was still angry, but he could tell that it was Saru talking.

“You wanted to talk, so let’s talk.” The artist grabbed a chair and pulled it over to Yata. He sat down with a soft thump.

Yata shrugged, his mood still sour. “Fine. Like I said earlier, I noticed that you don’t have any tattoos.”

Saruhiko’s wrist invaded his vision. A small black outline was printed on it. “What’s that?” Yata tilted his head a little and realized it was a monkey. A small fit out laughter erupted from him. “A _monkey_. A _saru_.” He laughed again, then stopped, remembering how Saruhiko had called his father an asshole for the name.

“ _Tsk_. I was forced to get this.” Saru slipped the arm band back over the tattoo.

“I’m sorry,” Yata said softly, honestly ashamed for laughing at him. The gang member had already forgotten about his bitterness towards his friends… was it because Saru was here with him?

Yata watched as the taller man shrugged and crossed his arms. “So?” Saruhiko prompted him to say something.

The skater glanced around for a topic and saw the muffins baking in the oven. “You like muffins?”

“No.”

“Well…. Try mine!” Yata watched him. “I made plain because I didn’t know what you like.”

Saru nodded. “Maybe I’ll try a bite….” he muttered softly.

“Okay!” Yata smiled. “You like it here?”

“It's….. nice, I guess.” Saruhiko shifted a little in his seat so he could sit cross-legged.

“That’s good.” _Bing!_

Yata jumped up from his seat and brought out the muffins.

* * *

Fushimi sat off to the side as he watched Misaki show off his aura. The artist sighed and nibbled on one of Misaki’s muffins—his 10th one, since Misaki wouldn’t stop making them. “So. Fushimi.” Fushimi looked up to see Kusanagi, the only person in the bar that really seemed responsible.

“Yes?” Fushimi took another little bite out of the muffin, finishing it off.

“How’s your business going? Have you heard of Kuroh Yatogami’s shop?” The bartender leaned against the counter, cleaning off an glass with a cloth.

Fushimi shrugged. “I’ve heard of him in passing.”

“He’s the usual guy we go to. Everyone here but Yata goes to him.”

“Why didn’t Yata go to him?” The younger man was actually curious.

Kusanagi shrugged. “I tried to ask him about it, but he kept his mouth shut for once.”

Fushimi glanced at the man in question. A red aura surrounded him. Misaki pumped a fist in the air and yelled that it was the first time that the aura hadn’t gone out on its own. Mikoto replied that it was because of the increased amount of emotion for him to feed off of. Fushimi clicked his tongue. “I was wondering…. Has he always been this hyper and excited?”

Kusanagi thought for a moment before answering. “No. He doesn’t usually get this hyped up about something. I mean, yes, he gets excited occasionally, but never about something this particular. He started acting like this…. a week ago, to be exact. Yata kept on saying that he wanted a tattoo from a certain artist. I’m assuming that’s you.” The bartender put a glass on the counter. “What do you want? I’ll give it to you free.”

Fushimi shrugged. “Anything not too strong.” He watched as Kusanagi started to make him a drink. “I’ve never seen him before last night. It surprised me how determined he was to get one.” The artist glanced back at Misaki for a moment, then noted that it was getting darker outside. He had lost the track of time.

Kusanagi nodded and put the drink in front of him as Misaki bounced over. “Saru! Did you see that?”

“Yeah. It was cool.” Fushimi didn’t mean it, but Misaki’s bright smile was enough to make it true.

“Thanks.” He noticed the glass. “Why does he get two without pay?”

The bartender looked at him. “Actually, you paid for the first one, I got the second one.”

“When did I say I would be paying for it?” Misaki sat down in the barstool, a confused look on his face.

“Last night, before we nearly stifled you with a pillow.”

The skater blushed. “I didn’t realize I said that.”

“Well you did, so I get a free drink from you.” Fushimi took a sip out of his teasingly.

Misaki gave him a soft glare. “It’s not like I can pay for it.”

The artist looked at him. “Why not?”

“I have just enough to get by before my next pay,” Misaki said sheepishly, ashamed that he didn’t have the money.

“Not my fault,” the taller man muttered. “You wanted that tattoo when you wanted it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

“Let’s see…” Fushimi started to list things off. “You didn’t come in with an appointment, you didn’t have an ID, which meant I had to do extra work by messing with your PDAWatch, you _demanded_ that I give you the tattoo, you carelessly plopped down in my chair, you—”

“Alright! I get it.” Misaki crossed his arms with a pout. “Is there any other way I could pay you? Like you give the money back for extra fees and I do something for you?”

Fushimi thought for a moment, then nodded. “Fine. You have to do at least 20,000 yen worth of quality tasks. You can’t just give me 20,000 pieces of candy.”

Misaki brought his watch closer to Fushimi, who took his PDA out. They did a quick transfer before putting them away.

“Misaki.” A light voice sounded from behind them. Both of them turned around to see Mikoto standing there, Anna sitting on his shoulder. “Make sure you walk your boyfriend back home,” she teased lightly.

“He isn’t my boy—”

“It’s the polite thing to do,” she said, cutting him off. “Good night, Fushimi.”

“Night…” Fushimi glanced at Mikoto and Anna walking up the stairs for a moment before turning away back to his drink.

Kusanagi sighed. “Well, I guess it’s time for all of us to go to bed. Can’t cause too much racket with them sleeping.”

Misaki frowned. “I wanted to spend more time with Saru though!”

“Then why don’t you ask him yourself?”

Fushimi looked at Misaki, who turned to him, blushing. “Could… I spend more time with you tonight?”

“No.” The artist didn’t hesitate. He needed to sleep and get ready for the shop tomorrow….. But he did feel guilty for saying no. He didn’t know why, but he did.

“I guess Eric and I will be seeing you on Tuesday, then.”

He did look upset, so Fushimi said, “Make me a batch of those muffins or something.” After a moment he added, “To make up for some of the money… and you don’t want me eating just energy bars, right?”

That made Misaki smile again. “Okay! I’ll be back in a bit.” He jumped off of the stool and ran back into the kitchen.

Misaki came back out not too long after carrying a plate full of muffins and a black container. “A batch of muffins and some Yata-rice.” He proudly put them on the counter.

“Yata-rice?” Fushimi looked through the transparent lid. It looked edible, Fushimi concluded.

“Yep! I was trying to make something that Kusanagi told me about with Kamamoto, but I messed up a little, so now we have Yata-rice.” He smiled smugly, prideful of his work. “Oh, and also you have to heat it up if you put in the fridge.”

Fushimi nodded and stood up, picking up the “Yata-rice”. “Misaki, help me bring this to the car.”

“Okay! Good night Kusanagi!” Misaki chimed while picking up his muffins.

“Good night, boys.” The bartender waved as the two walked outside.

Misaki hopped over to the car and put the muffins in when Fushimi opened the door. “Um… Saruhiko?”

Fushimi glanced at him after putting the “Yata-rice” into the car.

“C-can I… Uh…. C-can….” The shorter man was a blushing mess, stuttering over his words. He had pulled off his beanie and was twisting it in his hands.

“What?”

“Nevermind! Forget it. It’s just nonsense.” Misaki blushed more, looking away. “Just good night. Have a good night.”

Fushimi looked at him for a moment, his hand braced on the open car door. “Okay. Night, Misaki.” But before closing the car door, he said, “17,000.”

* * *

Fushimi did eat some of the muffins and “Yata-rice”. He wasn’t planning to, but Misaki had made it for him. So for dinner, Fushimi popped open the “Yata-Rice” container. Steam bloomed out of it because of the microwave.

The artist looked at the “Yata-rice” for a moment before taking a bite. It actually tasted good, or maybe it was because the only food he had eaten recently was Yata’s muffins… still, he was grateful for something nice after a day of work. Fushimi glanced up at his laptop and took another bite. With his free hand he clicked on a website.

_Shiro and Kuroh_

_[times. address. etc.]_

_Kuroh Yatogami has been in service for at least three years, taking over the business from his late “master” Ichigen Miwa. He specializes in tattoos while his assistant, Yashiro Isana, specializes in piercings. This pair has rapidly gone up in the charts as the most reliable and affectionate._

_*note: If you have cat allergies, do not come in. We own a cat named Neko. Also, unnecessary hassles will be a fee, we don’t have time for nonsense._

Midway towards the end of the description of Yatogami’s shop, Fushimi bit into something weird. He looked into the dish to see pineapples. The artist gave his food the straightest face anyone had ever seen. _I’m going to have to talk to Misaki about this._ He poked the vile piece of food with a chopstick, then realized that he had already eaten some. _Misaki is going to pay for that._

Fushimi pushed the dish away from him and turned his focus back to the computer. Pictures of the two men and the cat were posted. Yatogami had a lot of tattoos covering his arms; one poked out of his shirt and onto his neck. His hair was tied back in a neat ponytail. The other man was kind of cute (not as cute as Misaki, but Fushimi wasn’t going to admit that). There were a few black streaks in his white hair and three lip piercings on his right bottom lip. He had his head cocked and his tongue sticking out, flashing a peace sign as well. He looks too lively to be working with Yatogami, Fushimi thought.

A twirling noise came out of the computer and a little green box appeared in the corner. He clicked on it. The box expanded and the box grew bigger until it was 3x2. The was private message for JUNGLE.

**Hello Fushimi.**

Fushimi glanced at the username, then replied. **Yes, King?**

Mikoto wrote back, **Congrats on making it to fifth place. Didn’t tell you earlier cuz I doubted anyone else knew.**

**Misaki knows.**

Fushimi clicked on Mikoto’s profile while waiting for an answer.

 _Mikoto Suoh_ _Play time: 5 months_ _Place: 4th_ _Online?: Yes_ _Age: 24_ _Extra information: Mikoto is currently the leader of the Homra gang. He has been in 4th place for 3 months now and he does not want to move. Beware._

Mikoto replied, **You to are close.** Fushimi frowned at the spelling mistake.

**No we are not.**

**Misaki is close to you.**

**Why are you speaking to me?** Fushimi asked, frustrated as to why everyone seemed to think that Misaki liked and knew him so well.

**-Mikoto Suoh logged off-**

“Of course,” the artist grumbled before getting up and returning the “Yata-rice” to the fridge for the next day. He shut his laptop and plugged it in. He grabbed his PDA and headed into his bedroom with a yawn. Before getting onto the bed, he took off his pants and threw them into the corner; he did the same with his arm bands.

Fushimi took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, placing them on the nightstand. When he did, he noticed that his art notebook was open. He shoved his glasses back on and read what it said:

_Here is my number: XXX-XXX-XXXX. I figured that you wouldn’t ask for it so yeah. Here you go! ~Yata._

There was a small crow next to the number that was poorly drawn (two circles with a triangle beak and stick legs), but strangely cute. Fushimi sat on the bed and put the number into his PDA, not intending to use it unless something important came up. But he hesitated before shutting off his phone. It would be…. nice to talk to him, Fushimi thought, even if it was just to annoy him about the food. Fushimi hadn’t had that kind of friendly human contact in a long time. Quite frankly, he really hadn’t had any friendly contact. Fushimi wanted to feel it again, the feeling of being mentally connected with someone.

He didn’t realize that he had clicked the call button until he saw Misaki across the screen and “outputting” written underneath. Fushimi was about to hang up when Misaki answered.

“Hey, Yata here,” a groggy voice mumbled through the phone.

Fushimi closed his eyes for a moment, stemming his nerves. He didn’t like talking over the phone; he couldn’t read the person’s features to tell how they were feeling. It was either text or face to face, nothing in between. “Hey… Misaki.”

“Saru? Hi!” The grogginess in his voice seemed to disappear. “It’s 2 am. What’s up?”

“Pineapples.” Okay. That was a good enough reason to call, right? Not just to hear someone’s voice.

“Huh? Pineapples.” There was a pause. “Or right! The “Yata-rice.””

Fushimi laid back on the bed so his legs dangled off the side. “18,000.”

“Did you just increase the price because I put pineapples in it? Did you even try it?”

“Yes to both.”

“Did you like it?” Misaki sounded like he was holding his breath.

Fushimi didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yes.”

“The you shouldn’t raise the price! I take it that you don’t like pineapples, but at least take it down to 1750! Pretend that the pineapple isn’t there.”

“I can’t pretend. But fine. 1750 since you answered your phone.”

“Yay!” Fushimi listened to Misaki cheer goofily over the phone. After another moment of silence Misaki said his name.

“Yeah?”

“There must be another reason why you called.”

“There isn’t.” Fushimi went to click the “end call” button, but Misaki interrupted quickly.

“Oh. But stay on please. I’m awake so we might as well—”

“Talk. I know. You like to talk.”

“It depends…”

“Let’s not talk,” Fushimi decided.

“O-okay.” Misaki went silent.

The artist rolled over onto his side, his phone now on speaker so he didn’t have to hold it to his ear. He stared at the phone, the screen casting shadows on the sheets and walls. He closed his eyes after a moment, then realized that he could hear Misaki breathing. It was oddly comforting—hearing someone breathe, yet not lying next to them. An unknowing smile crept across his lips.

Fushimi closed his eyes and darkness rolled in.

* * *

Fushimi pressed his palms into his eyes. “God dammit,” he growled. He didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before, except for right after the call. The usual nightmare happened again. He hated it so much that he usually got only an hour or two of sleep a night—or just skipped it altogether. The artist normally would go home or into the backroom to rest if he had gotten no sleep whatsoever, but he was waiting for Misaki and Eric.

His last client had just left with a wave, so he looked at the time. He let out another growl, seeing that it was getting later and later and they still hadn’t come. “ _Misaki_. What’s taking you so long?”

Speak of the devil, the front door opened with a little jingle and Misaki walked in, his hooded friend right behind him. The artist got to his feet and walked over.

“Hi Saru!” The shorter man smiled up at him. “We’re here!”

“I see that.”

Misaki itched at the back of his neck, a blush blooming on his cheeks. “Uh….”

“What?” Fushimi frowned at him, not understanding his sudden embarrassment.

“N-nothing.” He blushed more.

The artist leaned down teasingly. “Why are you blushing, Misaki?”

The red on his face was suddenly ten times darker than it had been a second earlier when Fushimi had leaned down. “I-I just remembered when…. I just…. I was just remembering how much I liked listening to your breathing.” The last sentence came out quickly, as if he had had to force himself to say it.

Heat crept up into Fushimi’s cheeks, remembering that he had thought the same thing.

“[Chihuahua is cute when blushing.]” Fushimi turned and looked at Eric in surprise, who had lowered his hoodie to reveal light blue eyes. He noticed Fushimi looking at him. “[You understand me?]” he said in English.

“[Of course I do,]” responded Fushimi, glad that the awkwardness between the gang member and artist was interrupted.

Both men smirked evilly at the same time. Clearly Misaki didn’t understand, because he was looking at both of them with a confused expression. Now the two of them had something against Misaki.

Fushimi moved away from Misaki and over to Eric. “Where?”

Eric grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt, then hesitated. He frowned and shook his head as if to push away certain thoughts, then he pulled his sweatshirt over his head, his shirt coming off with it. He quickly looked away and tapped his shoulder. “There.”

The artist nodded. “Okay.” He pushed him a little and he obeyed, laying on his stomach. Fushimi quickly scanned his body with his eyes, to see why Eric seemed so uncomfortable with taking his shirt off.

“I was a dog of Hikawa, okay?” the blond grumbled, knowing exactly what Fushimi was looking at. The artist was staring at the scars covering his back, mostly around his arms and neck.

Fushimi didn’t respond, but instead grabbed the photo from Misaki’s tattoo and started to copy the symbol down. Misaki had wandered over, his skateboard now gone. “Go sit,” Fushimi grumbled as he finished the sketch.

The skater did as he was told and sat in a rolling chair. Fushimi took out his phone and took a picture of the sketch for Eric. After a nod of approval from the gang member, Fushimi did the rest.

During the process, Misaki had repeatedly come over to watch—enough times for Fushimi to click his tongue, annoyed, and allow him to stay. His bright amber eyes were sparkling in amazement as he watched Fushimi work.

Eric sat up, now with a pad on his shoulder. “[Thank you, Fushimi.]”

“[Welcome.]” The artist put his stuff away.

“This is so cool! Your whole job is cool!” Misaki spun around in the rolling chair until his orange hair looked like a blur.

“Slow down or you’ll hurt yourself.” Fushimi flashed him a look, but didn’t really mean it. He pushed away the little happy feeling that had erupted in his chest at Misaki’s words.

The blond put his shirt and hoodie back on and fished his PDA from his pocket. “How much?”

“10,000.”

He nodded, and was putting his PDA close to Fushimi’s to transfer the money when the front door swung open violently.


	4. “Why should I apologize? I didn’t really mean to do anything wrong."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff goes down in this chapter. Sorry in advance for people who love Misaki’s happiness. [if you haven’t realized, I’m not good at writing summaries.] This chapter is mostly in Saruhiko’s POV. Enjoy.

Fushimi didn’t even turn around, knowing exactly who was at the door—it was the three regulars who were constantly demanding that he give them free stuff. The men always seemed to think that it was easy to pick on Fushimi, just like Hikawa did.

“Fushimi. We’re back.”

“Go away.” He finished the transfer for the money and glanced at the men. “I’ve already told you no. Can’t you just stop?”

Misaki had stopped spinning. “Oi! Who are you guys?” He jumped out of the chair, ready for a fight.

The men were impressively tall, taller than Fushimi. The one in the middle stepped forward, tilting his head. “Oh? You don’t know us, punk?” He towered over Misaki, putting him in an impressive shadow, but the shorter man didn’t even flinch.

Fushimi put his hand under his coat, his fingers closing around a few knives. “Get out! Now! I have no business for you.”

The other two faced the artist and smirked. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have business for you.” Both men surged forward. Fushimi swiped his hand up out of his coat. Light glinted off of the three blades as they glided into the air and right into the left man’s arm. Fushimi was reaching to grab another knife when a hand closed around his throat. _Shit._ He desperately tried to pull the blade out before his hand was roughly grabbed and pinned next to his head. _Fuck._ His other hand was busy grasping at the hand around his neck, his nails digging into the flesh.

This was his nightmare. His nightmare were always the same thing. One day, little 13 year old Fushimi had gotten pissed off at the world. He hadn’t known what he was doing, but he had destroyed some of his father’s most prized possessions. He had instantly regretted his actions and hid, but Niki had found out quickly. That was the angriest he has ever seen his father. Niki had always worn a smirk and acted quite cruelly, but he had never looked so livid—or beaten his son. When he found out, he had screamed himself hoarse at Fushimi and pinned him to the wall, rendering him useless while he ranted about how he was “worthless” and “just a monkey that always gets in the way.” The whole time he had been holding onto Fushimi’s throat, his grip getting tighter and tighter, not letting him take a single breath….

“Saruhiko!” A scream snapped him out of his daze. Luckily, the man holding his throat had also turned around to find the source of the noise. Fushimi took his chance and kicked his leg up. He hit the man right in the hip, knocking him off balance. The artist ripped the hand off of his neck and took a breath of air.

A red flame appeared behind the man, making him only a silhouette. Misaki lifted up his skateboard and hit the guy in the side of the head with a loud crack. The guy fell like a rock, revealing a fuming Misaki. His aura was on full force, lighting up the whole room. Misaki swore and kicked the guy in the head to make sure he was knocked out.

Fushimi slowly sank to the floor. He didn’t know why, but he was trembling. His heart beat wildly as if it was bursting out of his chest.

Misaki killed his aura and dropped down next to Fushimi. “Hey? You okay? You’re shaking really badly.”

“No shit,” he spat, his eyes now wandering around the room, taking in the damage. The three guys laid unconscious on the ground. Eric was pulling out the knives from one of them. The whole place was now a mess.

“Yeah….” Misaki turned to look at Eric too. “Eric? Can you bring the guys outside? The floors are hardwood and they’ll be stained.”

“Alright. I can do that.” Eric started to drag them out.

Misaki turned his attention back to Fushimi. “Are you okay?” he asked again. “Did he hurt you?” He reached up and gently pulled down Fushimi’s collar a little to see if he was injured.

The artist slapped his hand away. “I’m fine.” He shakily stood up and walked over to the bloody knives.

“No. You’re not. Come home with me,” Misaki said stubbornly. “Obviously, the guy holding you against the wall isn’t the whole problem. I don’t think you should go home alone to—”

“I’m not a child Misaki. I don’t need your coddling.” Fushimi rounded on him. “Got it?”

“I know you’re not a child.”

“Then don’t treat me like one. I can defend myself.”

“No you can’t.”

Fushimi gripped his knives tightly in his hand. “Shut the fuck up. I can.” Knowing better than to keep holding them and accidentally hurt Misaki, he put them away.

“He could have crushed your throat and killed you just now. How about that? How do you think I’d feel if you died?” Misaki pointed to his chest.

Fushimi raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? You’d really care if I died? Why do you even care? Or a better question—why do you even like me?”

“No reason.” Misaki shrugged.

Fushimi took a step forward. “Liar.”

“I’m not a—”

“You’re a liar. It’s quite obvious that you like me. Do you really think that I’ll like you back? You probably thought a lonely tattoo artist would be a perfect boyfriend. Well, you’re wrong. Do you even think about what I might be feeling? Hell, do you even realize how annoying you are, bouncing off the walls at the mere whisper of my name? Do you think I want a boyfriend like that?” Fushimi let out a growl, now unable to stop whatever shit was coming of out of his mouth. “Do you really think that I liked that phone call last night? ‘I like the sound of you breathing.’ Yeah. I don’t want a boyfriend that thinks creepy stuff like that. You probably listened to your dad breathe and thought the same thing.”

Misaki’s eyes went wide. “FUCK YOU,” Misaki screamed, his aura flaming up again. “YOU KNOW NOTHING.” The normally cute, smiling face of Misaki was suddenly full of rage.

For some odd reason this made Fushimi smirk with glee, adrenaline back in his blood. “Oh? Try me.”

Misaki whipped his hand, creating a line of flame that lashed out at Fushimi. He ducked and threw a knife at him; it flew through the air, breaking the line of flame. Misaki kicked the knife into the air and caught it.

Fushimi’s heart was beating fast and hard. He was reaching for more knives when someone jumped between them. “Yata, stop. Fushimi, you stop as well.”

“Tch.” Fushimi didn’t put his knives away but watched as Misaki’s aura died down.

“I’m leaving.” Misaki roughly pushed past Eric and walked out of the door, grabbing his skateboard off of the ground. Eric shot Fushimi a glare before following. They left the artist standing alone in the middle of the messed up shop.

Fushimi started to shake violently. What had just happened finally started sinking in as the adrenaline and excitement wore off. He had messed up. He had hurt Misaki. All of the memories that had resurfaced during the fight had shaken him up so badly that he had just snapped. All of it was a lie… just a lie meant to push Misaki away. He had hurt him so badly, and it was only to get him to leave Fushimi alone. And then to fight him, after saying all those awful things. He really looked like an asshole now–an asshole who doesn’t give a single shit about anything or anyone.

“Shit,” Fushimi said aloud. “ _Shit_ ,” he muttered again, collapsing to the ground. His chest heaved and he looked around. For the first time in his life he didn’t know what to do. He reached for his PDA laying on the ground next to him and opened it up. He at least had to tell someone what had happened to the three men outside and get them taken care of.

He clicked on the JUNGLE app and it opened up. There was only one person he had contact with other than Misaki. It was Mikoto. He quickly sent a message.

**King. Come to [address]. Don’t let Misaki know.**

He shoved the PDA into his pocket and sat there for a moment, catching his breath before standing up and heading over to a mirror to see if he really was hurt. He squinted at his reflection. No injury, that was good. A bruise was already starting to form on his neck, but it didn’t look too serious.

Fushimi went to go clean up when he did a double take at the mirror. A familiar face was staring back at him. His father was staring back at him, his hair styled the same way as Fushimi’s. Niki smirked and fear tingled down Fushimi’s spine. “Fuck you,” he growled at the mirror, before he heard footsteps behind him. He whipped around to see Mikoto standing at the doorway, lazily smoking a cigarette.

“What you need?” Mikoto glanced around, someone else appearing behind him.

“What’s up King?” A skinny man stood next to him. His tan hair and earring glinted in the glare of the store lights.

Fushimi looked at both of them. He didn’t really know what to say, so he just told them about the three men who had beat him up, leaving out the part about Misaki getting pissed.

Mikoto raised an eyebrow. “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“Someone got upset after the fight.” Mikoto leaned against the wall. “I can tell.”

Fushimi sat down in the discarded rolling chair. “Misaki and I got into a fight. It’s nothing.”

The man was looking around and picking stuff up as the other two talked. He perked up when he heard about the fight. “You guys got into a fight? What was it about?” The artist clamped his mouth shut. Nobody needed to know about what he had said and done. The man seemed to understand, so he nodded. “You can tell us later. Everything will be alright.”

Mikoto stepped outside.

* * *

Fushimi didn’t know why he was sitting on the couch at Homra bar. Everything about last night was a mess. The fight, Mikoto coming over. He remembered that the man—Tatara Totsuka was his name—had dragged him here, saying that he should rest up.

Totsuka had pushed him into the spare bedroom upstairs and told him to try to sleep. He assured Fushimi that he and Mikoto would clean up what had happened, and Fushimi had actually gotten sleep for once. He had woken up remembering a dream, (one he’d rather not talk about to preserve the little bit of pride that he had left) but it had been all about Misaki’s smiles and the smell and taste of his food.

So now Fushimi sat on the couch downstairs, the blanket he had dragged down wrapped about him, waiting for the two gang members to wake up.

“Fushimi? You down here?” The light voice of Totsuka sounded as he walked down the stairs. He hopped down the last two steps before walking into the bar area. “Oh. You’re here.” Fushimi shrugged a little. The man smiled, seeming to not mind that the artist was seeing him in just his boxers and a four-sizes-too-big T-shirt. He turned and called up the stairs, “King, found him.”

A rough grunt came from above, making Totsuka laugh softly. “So…. Fushimi.”

“What?” He looked at him. Early rays of sunlight shone through the window, sending streaks across the ground and over Totsuka’s face.

“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” He sat down next to him, pulling his knees up to his chest before slipped his T-shirt over his skinny legs to keep himself warm.

Fushimi frowned and pulled the blanket around him more. He didn’t answer at first, then said quietly, “I got pissed off at him because I didn’t want him taking care of me. I was fine the way I was.” The artist didn’t look at the gang member, but being near him gave Fushimi an odd calming feeling so he kept talking. “I said some mean things to him. Asking why he even likes me and if he really thought that he could.”

Totsuka nodded. “By the looks of your shop and what you told us, I don’t think it’s your fault that you got mad at him. You were pretty shaken up. It’s not like you could really think straight at the time.” He continued, “Is anything else bothering you?”

Fushimi glanced at him; Totsuka was looking at him like he could tell that something was wrong. This gang is messed up, he thought, considering the fact that 1- there was a little girl with them, 2- their leader was named King, 3- everyone seemed to be able to tell that Fushimi was hiding stuff from them, and 4- one of their members was much too cute (he blushed inwardly at the thought) and happy to be in a gang. It would be surprising if they had never been told they were weird. Once again he tried to hold back, but let what he was thinking spill. “I hate how I look. I also hate Niki.”

“How so?”

“I look like my father, Niki.”

“Oh….” Totsuka went quiet for a moment and said, “I don’t know how to help you with that, but I think you should apologize to Yata.”

“Why should I apologize? I didn’t really mean to do anything wrong,” Fushimi countered.

Totsuka sighed and sat back, letting his legs out of the shirt so that his feet landed on the floor. “I mean, you don’t have to directly apologize to him. Maybe do something for him, or take him out for lunch or something. Just do something that he’ll like and he might forgive you. Some kind of an apology might work, even if it’s only an ‘I’m sorry’. Yata isn’t the kind of person who would stay mad unless you had hurt him really badly. From what you said, he’ll forgive you.” Fushimi looked at him doubtfully, so he added. “Everything will be alright. You guys’ll work things out.”

“Yeah….” Fushimi looked up to see Mikoto coming down the stairs. He was carrying a pair of pants and he tossed them in Totsuka’s lap when he passed them to get into the kitchen.

Fushimi stood up. “I’m going to get going now.” He flew up the stairs before Totsuka could tell him to stay. He pulled on his knife harness and coat before heading back down, and was going to walk out the door when a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” the deep voice of Mikoto sounded over his shoulder.

Though the artist’s senses were telling him to run as far away from Mikoto as possible he stayed put, masking his fear and unease with a straight face. “To my apartment—”

Mikoto cut him off. “Totsuka, we’re taking Fushimi home.”

“—alone,” he mumbled as Totsuka bounded over, sliding his jacket on so that he looked halfway decent.

During the walk back to his apartment, Fushimi asked a question that had been bothering him. “Mikoto?”

“Hm?”

“You messaged me on JUNGLE. Why?” Fushimi looked at him.

The stronger man shrugged. “Why not?”

Fushimi stopped walking, causing Totsuka to bump into him. “Could you at least answer this, the both of you? Why does everyone at Homra want Misaki to be with me?”

Mikoto took out a cigarette and lit it. “It’s obvious.”

Totsuka smiled. “Yeah. It is kind of obvious. He likes you—shouldn’t that be enough? If he wants this then we are going to encourage it. It’s not like it’s a bad thing. He’s happy. And…” Totsuka’s smile fell a little bit. “He’s been a off lately, like hasn’t been the bouncy, happy Yata you know. Probably since… ” he paused, then continued, “… since I almost died.”

Fushimi looked at him, confused. He looked rather healthy, so he couldn’t possibly of nearly died from illness unless it was something genetic. Mikoto spotted his confused look and clarified. “The Mari Shootings. You might of heard about it.”

Fushimi did remember it. Last year, a girl named Mari Isana had gone on a shooting spree, killing dozens of people. When the police found her, she had killed herself after proclaiming that she was the “Colorless King”. Afterwards, there was a video sent out that had spammed every PDA and TV in the city. The video was of the girl shooting a man who had just been trying to look at the stars. Later that night, a report went out talking about Mari. Apparently, she was a mental patient who had been in the hospital her whole life due to some kind of illness.

“… You were the one in the video.” The artist connected the dots. “And she is Yashiro Isana’s sister.”

Totsuka shrugged a little. “Yeah. I was the one in the video. Thankfully, I lived but… it really hurt some people. Yata was the first one to get to me. It broke him.”

“But something good came out of it.” Mikoto exhaled some smoke and grabbed Totsuka’s hand with his free one. On both of their hands there were matching silver rings that shone in the sunlight.

“This didn’t come out of that. It was going to happen anyways.” Totsuka rolled his eyes and took his hand back. He glanced at Fushimi. “Engagement rings.”

Fushimi looked at the both of them. Mikoto’s cheeks reddened a little; he grabbed his fiancé’s hand and started to walk again. “Fushimi needs to get home.” He was clearly embarrassed but trying not to show it.

* * *

The evening light shown down on the skater and his friend. A light breeze skimmed over the air, making Yata’s hair move slightly in its wake.

Yata angrily sipped his juice box, crushing the box a little in his hand. He had been in a pissed-off mood ever since last night.

“Yata. Could you calm down a little?” Kamamoto sighed. “What’s bothering you? You’ve been like this all day.”

“Nothing.” Yata let out a huff and tossed the empty box into the trash can. “I’m fine.” He dropped his skateboard and hopped on it.

The fatty frowned. “Oh, come on.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he said again, kicking off the ground a few times to get into a walking pace.

Kamamoto walked next to him. “Why don’t we see that friend of yours?”

“He’s not my friend.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We got into a fight, okay? I’m fine, so stop asking. I don’t want to see him anymore.” Yata kicked off the ground again, putting space between him and Kamamoto.

Kamamoto frowned, but kept following him. “Well…. you like video games, so do you want to go to your place and play some? Would that help?”

The skater thought for a moment but shook his head no. “I need to find a new job.”

After some silence, Kamamoto said, “There’s a coffee shop that just opened. It’s an Internet café so it’s always open and probably looking for some jobs.”

“Take me there.”

Kamamoto lead Yata to the café. “You want me to leave?”

“If you want.” Yata picked up his skateboard and headed inside. He glanced around. The place was mostly quiet and didn’t look half bad. The front of the café looked like a regular coffee shop, but instead of talking amongst themselves, most of the people were minding their own business on newspapers and laptops. The back room had a few rows of computers. “This isn’t bad,” muttered Yata as he headed to the front counter.

A man stood behind the counter, scowling at the coffee machine. Yata watched him for a second before saying a soft “excuse me.” The man noticed that he was at the counter and walked over. “Hello. What can I get you?”

“I was just wondering if you guys had any jobs open.”

The man grinned. “Yeah. I have some papers—” he bent down and grabbed some from under the counter— “right here. Just sign and you’ll be ready.”

Yata looked at him in surprise. “You don’t need background checks or anything?”

“There are only a few people working here so every person helps. You want a background check?” He leaned on the counter.

“No, sir.” Yata grabbed a pen and, sitting down at one of the desks, started to fill out the paperwork.

Halfway through, his PDAWatch buzzed. “What do you want?” he asked under his breath, and glanced at the name. Saruhiko. “Nope.” He swiped away the text without even reading it and went back to the paperwork.

His PDAWatch buzzed again. Another text from Saruhiko popped up. Yata glared at the watch for a moment before looking at the messages.

 **Meet me at Homra at 11:00am.**

**Or I’ll get you myself.**

Yata ignored the texts.

* * *

Yata didn’t go to the bar the next day. He didn’t want to see Saruhiko, yet he still wanted to know what the texts meant.

A sudden knocking made the skater jump. He glanced at the time and saw that it was noon. He flipped off the door and picked up his game controller. He didn’t need this guy’s bullshit. Obviously he didn’t give two shits about Yata or his feelings.

“Mi~sa~ki. I know you’re in there.”

“Stalker!” Yata yelled at the door.

“You know your door is unlocked,” the voice on the other side of the door said bluntly.

“No it isn—” The door swung open to reveal a smirking Saru. “Get out of my house!” Yata leapt to his feet and grabbed the baseball bat from next to the couch.

“I’m not in it,” he said shortly again, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Saruhiko was, in fact, not in his house, just standing right outside of it. Yata rolled his eyes. “Just leave me alone, okay? I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“Well, I wanted to see you.” Yata watched as pink spread across his cheeks. “And I’m gonna take you somewhere.”

Yata was suddenly interested, his hands now loose on the bat. “Where?”

“You wanted to do to the JUNGLE party, so we’re going to go.”

The bat hit the floor as Yata’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?” All traces of his past grudge seemed to disappear. “But it isn’t until like a week or so.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t get ready.” The taller man scratched the back of his neck embarrassedly.

Yata smiled brightly. “Thank you Saru!”

“I’m not doing this for you,” Saru mumbled.

Yata didn’t care. He quickly grabbed his jacket from the coat rack and slipped his shoes on before bouncing out of the house and locking the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I can tell that you all are wondering who Mari is. No, she is not an OC or an made up character (kinda). If you remember in episode 2, Shiro lies to Koruh that he has a sister named Mari Isana that has been hospitalized for her whole life due to illness. Ok. Yes she isn’t a real character in [K] but I didn’t want to get into the mess with the Colorless King so I remembered that he had a “sister” and I decided to play on that since they could’ve looked alike if she was real. This is not a fanfic that goeson the same plot as the manga/anime but I’m incorporating events/facts that happened in the real [K]. Also, sorry for people who don’t ship Mikototsu. I’m not going to put too much of them together into this because I know not a lot of people ship it. Mikototsu is happy but very sad considering that he died in the anime.


	5. "It went well."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Here is chapter 5! Misaki forgives Saruhiko for all those mean things. Mikoto and Totsuka are acting a little like Saru’s new parents. Cute blushing Misaki. Enjoy!

Yata followed closely behind Saruhiko. “Where are we going?” 

“You’ll see,” Saru said, picking up his pace so that Yata had to walk faster to match his long strides. 

Yata pouted a little but kept walking. He put his hands in his pockets, excitement and impatience making him shiver. He looked at Saru’s back and saw a grey messenger bag. “What’s that for?”

“Why do you keep asking questions?” Saru looked back at him, his glasses glaring in the sunlight. Yata just shrugged. Saru sighed.

“Here.” The artist stopped walking, turned and opened the front door of the shop. 

Yata glanced around, confused as to why Saru had brought him along until he saw the racks of dresses, dress shirts and suits. “We’re getting stuff to wear?”

Saruhiko didn’t reply, but the answer was clearly yes. Yata smiled and glanced around. “Weren’t there some requirements for how we have to dress?”

Saruhiko pulled his PDA out of his pocket and shoved it into Yata’s hands. The message read: 

_Men: Either black or white dress pants, sports coat, tie and shoes (dress vests are optional). Also, a dress shirt displaying your favorite color! There will be a poll taken of everyone’s favorite color at the party, and everyone wearing the winning color will win a prize (points, money, or extra privileges for a certain amount of time)._

_Woman: A solid colored dress in your favorite color (see men’s dress shirts for details on the poll). Black or white dress shoes. Black, white, or favorite color purse/jewelry if bringing._

Yata read the message quickly and handed the PDA back to the artist. “Okay. We can do that.” 

Saru nodded and started to walk into another room off of the main area. Yata followed him, curious as to where he was going. 

“King! I think this will look good on you.” Yata looked into the room to see his king sitting on a bench while Totsuka shoved a colored tile into his hands. 

The skater stood there, confused. Mikoto was sitting in the middle of a dress shop. _A dress shop_. Mikoto would never step foot in one. “W-why...?!”

Totsuka glanced over at him, hearing his confused exclamation. “Yata! You finally got here.” 

“Saru? Why is Mikoto here?” Yata asked the man standing next to him. 

“The same reason we’re here.” Saruhiko clicked his tongue, annoyed that he was asking such questions. 

“King is in JUNGLE?!” Yata was in disbelief. 

Mikoto just shrugged. “Yeah. So?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the skater asked, genuinely confused as to why he would hide something like that. 

King was going to take out his box of cigarettes when Totsuka grabbed them and whispered that he couldn’t smoke in the store. So he sighed and said, “You never asked.”

Well, that’s true, but it would’ve been nice to know, Yata thought. He shook his head and glanced around the room. The first thing that caught his eye was the wall of tiles. Racks of colors spanned from the top of the ceiling to the floor in rainbow order. Yata walked over to the wall in awe and put his hand on the white ladder. “So…. We pick colors from this?” 

“Misaki.” Yata turned around when Saru said his name. “I already picked yours out.” He pulled a tile out of his pocket; it shone in the light, making the color appear to be between fire red and sunset orange. 

The skater walked over to him and took the tile, surprised that Saruhiko had apparently gone shopping and chosen Yata a color before picking him up. “Thank you Saruhiko! Did you pick yours out yet?” He shook his head, so Yata dashed over to the ladder and climbed up it to get to the blue tiles. He would’ve wanted Saruhiko to wear something reddish, but it really wasn’t his color.

Yata grabbed a few tiles and slid down the ladder before hopping over to the three men sitting on the bench. “Here’s three. Light blue,” —he held up the one to the far left— “blue steel… oh sorry I meant steel blue,” —he held up the middle one— “or midnight blue. I like steel blue the most because it matches your-ur-ur….” Yata felt heat rush up his neck and across his cheeks as he stopped himself mid-sentence. 

“My what?” Saru smirked, waiting for him to finish his sentence. 

“Y-y-your… Your eyes. Okay? I said it.” Yata crossed his arms, letting the tiles drop into Saru’s lap. 

Saru kept smirking, but the tips of his ears were red. “We’ll go with that one then.” He put the steel blue on top of the small pile of already picked-out colors. 

Yata quickly put the extras back before walking back over, making sure not to look at Saru. He plopped down on the floor, seeing that there was no more space on the white bench (there were several stools around the room but Yata, being Yata, wanted to stay closer to his king and, unadmittedly, Saru). 

After a few minutes, a man and a woman walked through the door. “Hello, I’m Kukuri Yukizome and this is Sōta Mishina. And this is Ashinaka.” The girl smiled and bowed, her boobs bouncing a little. Instantly, Yata turned 30 different shades of red. _Boobs._ Yata’s biggest fear. 

The girl walked over and picked up the tiles from the bench. The skater nearly fainted—he had a perfect view of her panties. Yata jumped up swiftly and onto Saru’s lap to move out of the view. He ignored the annoyed click of the taller man’s tongue. 

The girl nodded and took them one by one into the back room to take their measurements. Saruhiko was the last one to go, prolonging the ordeal long as he could. Yata assumed that it was because he didn’t like people touching him. 

* * *

They met outside, since Totsuka and Mikoto had walked off to have a smoke—which was likely only because they wanted to talk in private. Mikoto stood a few meters away in front of the alleyway with a cigarette in his hand while Totsuka leaned against the wall next to him. 

“Uh…. Saru?” 

“What?” Saruhiko glanced at Yata, pushing back his glasses. 

Yata took a deep break and said rapidly, “I’m sorry that I touched you at the shop. I didn’t know that it would bother you.” 

The artist looked at him, his blue eyes wide. He didn’t say anything at first, but finally he nodded. “It’s fine…. I’m sorry too,” he said sheepishly, keeping his gaze on Yata. 

The skater held his skateboard to his chest, feeling awkward. Saru had taken out his PDA and started to fiddle with it as Yata leaned against the wall next to him. A cool breeze passed by, forcing Yata to pull his beanie down a little, but it didn’t seem to bother Saru as he looked up at him. 

Yata shifted his weight from one foot to another before asking, “Don’t you have work today?” 

Saru shrugged, removing his gaze from the PDA to look down at him. “Yes, but I’m taking a few hours off. Nobody has an appointment until tonight.” 

“So…. Can we go get something for lunch before you have to go back to work?” He held his skateboard tighter to his chest as his embarrassment increased. He added, “Together. Can we go to lunch together?” 

“I don’t see why not.” Saruhiko sounded like he really couldn’t care less about lunch, but Yata took that as a yes. 

He smiled softly. “Okay. I know a good place we could go to.” 

“Better not be expensive. I have to pay for your food, remember?” 

“Then I can make you something at my place.” Yata liked the thought of that, but the look that crossed Saru’s face made him change his mind quickly. “Or we can just go to the restaurant. It’s not expensive, but it’s not a fast food place either.” 

Saruhiko nodded and pocketed the PDA. After some more silence, Saru kicked off of the wall and walked away, muttering that he’d tell Totsuka that they’d be going. Yata watched him go, noticing that Saru slumped a little while he walked—probably because he always had his hands in his pockets. 

Yata was getting anxious about going to lunch with Saru. It wasn’t like they were in a relationship or anything, so he shouldn’t be worried about people seeing them together, but…. He was still nervous. Maybe it was because he liked the tattoo artist. Maybe what was really bothering him was that Saruhiko came back even though he knew that Yata liked him. So did he like him back? Or did he just not care that Yata liked him anymore? The skater frowned, trying to figure the artist out. _Well, he did pick out a color for me and everything. It’s not like he’s just using me as a last resort for the JUNGLE party. He also did say that he was sorry, which looked like a pretty hard thing for him to do. But…. he could still just be keeping me to get his money back._ Yata shook his head at that last thought, not wanting to believe that it was true. _Wait a minute, how does he know Totsuka? They didn’t meet when I brought him to the bar. Did they meet behind my back?!_

Yata jumped and let out a loud squeak when he felt someone tap his head. Saru was back. Saruhiko rolled his eyes at the squeak. “Take us to the restaurant,” he said dryly. 

“O-okay!” Yata shifted his skateboard so that it was under his arm. He started to lead his… friend?… to the restaurant. 

After a while, Yata looked up at him and spoke. “Saru? How did you meet Totsuka?” 

Saruhiko didn’t answer at first, then shrugged. “The night we were at the shop.” 

“Why?”

He didn’t say anything, but picked up his pace. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but Yata was still curious. 

* * *

Once in the restaurant, Fushimi glanced around. It was a nice small place, and obviously didn’t get many customers. A cat dashed out from behind the counter, a small fish in her mouth. “Shiro! Keep your cat on a leash! We have you pay for that food, you know,” the chef grumbled from the other side of the counter, glaring at a familiar-looking pair of people. 

“Shiro and Kuroh are here!” Misaki quickly picked up the cat, Neko, recognizing her by her unusual pink fur. 

Fushimi clicked his tongue, bothered by the situation. Although… it was rather convenient that the pair was at the restaurant. He had been wanting to talk to Kuroh about something. Fushimi adjusted his messenger bag on his shoulder and followed Misaki to their table. 

Yashiro Isana, whose nickname was apparently Shiro, waved at them. “Hi Yata! Who’s this?” 

“This is Saruhiko, Fushimi Saruhiko.” Misaki proudly introduced him, which made him click his tongue again, but Misaki ignored it. 

“I already know who you guys are,” Fushimi said, “and I want to talk.” 

Kuroh finished the bite of ramen that was in his mouth before looking up. “‘Bout what?” 

Fushimi glanced at Misaki, who was looking up at him confusedly. “I’ll tell you later. How about you get us a table?” Misaki nodded and walked off, glancing back at Fushimi for a moment. The artist itched the back of his neck before sitting down. “I need an appointment for something I’ve been working on…”

Kuroh pushed his bowl over to Shiro and Neko, who eagerly ate it up. “What is it?” He pushed back his sleeves a little, a few tattoos peeking out. 

Fushimi took out his laptop and opened up a program. “This.” It was a 3D model of a man, a delicate black dragon wrapped around him. The head of the dragon was sprawled across his cheek, the body wrapping around his neck and down his chest. The dragon’s body continued down his abdomen until the tail made a little curve at his hip. 

Shiro looked at the model too. “That’s really cool. What about it?” 

Fushimi glanced over to see if Misaki was listening—he wasn't—and he told them. “I want to get this… On me. I don’t know any other tattoo artists, other than myself, but I know that Homra often goes to you two, so yes. I want this.” 

Kuroh nodded. “By the looks of this, it’s going to take a while to do.”

“It’s worth it.” Fushimi remembered the conversation he had had over JUNGLE (he’d been using Mikoto’s account) with Totsuka about getting the tattoo. He had been wanting to get it for months, even years, but had never made the move. He hadn’t trusted anyone to do it. The only reason he was finally pushing for it was probably because he was finally realizing how much he hated the way he looked. The tattoo would make him look different. 

Kuroh nodded. “Well, you don’t really need a pre-appointment since you already have the design and you know how all of this works. You seem like you want to do this, so I don’t think you’d bother arguing over prices and time.” He took his PDA out. “Can you give me a copy of that?” 

Fushimi gave him a copy of the model and put his laptop away. “Do you have anything before the 4th?” 

Once Kuroh and Fushimi decided on a date he got up and walked over to Misaki, Shiro giving him a wave as he left. The artist pulled out a chair and sat across from Misaki. 

Misaki was biting his lip, not looking up as Fushimi sat down. It actually worried him a bit, which was odd since he usually couldn’t care less about others. “What?” 

The skater finally looked up. “Nothing.” 

“People don’t say ‘nothing’ unless they’re hiding something. I didn’t even ask anything, I just said the word ‘what,’” Fushimi said, realizing quickly that Misaki was hiding something. 

Misaki pulled his beanie down a little over his face. “I just thought of something. It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he mumbled, pulling his beanie completely off. 

Fushimi wanted to ask what it was, but decided against it. “Fine.” He skimmed over the menu before putting it down. “Order me something that doesn’t have vegetables or fruit in it.” 

The skater looked relieved that Fushimi didn’t ask him to explain, but then rolled his eyes. “You’re so picky.”

Fushimi shrugged. “Not my problem.”

“You’re the one eating it!” Misaki pointed out. 

“Well, why are you complaining? It’s my food.” 

There was no heat behind either of their words. The two lightly bickered over Fushimi’s eating habits during the wait for their food until Misaki gave up and traded his meats for the artist’s veggies once they got their meals. 

* * *

“20,000.” Fushimi stood up, slipping the messenger bag strap over his head so it laid across his body. 

“20,000?” Misaki stood up as well, clueless as to why Fushimi had randomly stated the number. 

Tsk. “The food, remember? You’re going to have to pay me back.” Fushimi gave him an annoyed look. “I already took some off for taking me here.” 

“Oh. Okay” He nodded but looked away from Fushimi, scratching his arm as if something was making him feel awkward. 

The artist watched him for a moment before remembering something. _Misaki had acted like this after I left Homra when he had almost asked me for a… what? A kiss, maybe… well, he was definitely about to ask me for something just now._ Fushimi connected the dots and finally caught onto what Misaki wanted him to do. 

“Misaki.” He suddenly felt his chest tighten with nervousness and embarrassment. He had promised himself that he would be friendlier to Misaki during the day while they were on bad terms, but he hadn’t noticed at the time how much he really wanted Misaki to be happy.

“Wha—” Fushimi had suddenly pulled him close and hugged him, the skater’s face pressed against his jaw. He couldn’t see the shorter man’s face, but he could tell that his eyes were wide and he was blushing hard. Fushimi gently put his nose into the orange-red hair in his face, closing his eyes slightly. He felt Misaki relax and carefully put his arms around Fushimi’s waist. 

Fushimi pulled back quickly when he became aware that he was getting too comfortable with the hug. Heat rushed up the back of his neck. “See you, Misaki.” He turned and walked out of the restaurant, trying to ignore what had just happened. He didn’t look back to see Misaki’s reaction. He could be upset, happy, disgusted, or… _Happy, let’s go with happy._

He let out a breath and brushed a piece of hair out of his face once he had gotten a good distance away. He chuckled softly, thinking about Misaki. He was probably still standing in the middle of the restaurant, red-faced. Fushimi grinned, feeling light-hearted for the first time in a long time. He had done something _good_ for once. 

Fushimi took out his PDA, opened JUNGLE, and sent Mikoto a message. 

**It went well.**

When he had told Mikoto and Totsuka that he and Misaki were going out for lunch, Mikoto had told him, “Kiss him while you’re there,” which had made Totsuka scold him for being too blunt. Before he left, he’d told Fushimi to have fun and message them how it went. 

Fushimi looked up the other people in the top five while waiting for a message back. The list read: 

_1- Nagare Hisui_  
2- Munakata Reisi  
3- Adolf Weismann  
4- Mikoto Suoh  
5- Fushimi Saruhiko 

The name that stood out the most was Adolf Weismann; it sounded foreign. Fushimi decided that he would look Weismann up later. Out of the rest, he knew that Nagare Hisui was the leader of JUNGLE, the hardest person to beat, and he also knew that Munakata Reisi was the leader of Scepter 4. All he knew about him was what Kusanagi had said. 

**I’m glad it went well. Anything special happen? ~ Totsuka**

Fushimi knew exactly what he meant. **No. Nothing “special” happened.** He debated whether or not he should tell them anything else, but he didn’t think it would be a good idea. **I got the chance to speak to Kuroh tho.**

**Really! Did he say yes? ~ Totsuka**

**Yeah.**

**I think this is good for you. After what you told me, this would be a big impact on your life. ~ Totsuka**

**I should’ve done it earlier.**

**Ah. But the past is the past. Now you can just keep on going down the path that you have set for yourself. Yes, the past has influenced your future, but it has only set down a road. As you reach a fork in that road, it’s you who gets to decide whether to go left or right. But how did you reach that fork? Through your past. So embrace your past, but choose which direction your road is taking you. ~ Totsuka**

Fushimi didn’t answer this, trying to understand what Totsuka meant. But yes, he was right. If he’d never kept his father’s tattoo business open, he wouldn’t have been at the fork of the road that decided whether or not he should he friends with Misaki… and he had turned right, right to Misaki. Now he just had to wait until the next fork came. 

Totsuka messaged back. **Haha. Mikoto wants me to get off now. He just said that what I sent was confusing and he asked why I think there’s a similarity between roads and pasts/futures. Talk to you later. ~Totsuka**

**Bye**

Fushimi put his PDA away. A clap of thunder sounded and a cat yowled, running for cover. “ _Shit._ ” He hadn’t looked at the weather that morning. Apparently, there was supposed to be storms rolling in during the afternoon. 

He ran under an awning where other people on the sidewalk had gathered. He clicked his tongue. Fushimi definitely wouldn’t be under the awning if he didn’t have his laptop and art book. He really couldn’t care less about the rain—it was better than being in out the sun—but he couldn’t let his stuff get wet. 

Rain pattered onto the ground and into the umbrellas of the few people carrying them. He briefly debated either taking his coat off to cover up his messenger bag or going into the store to buy an umbrella. He would definitely get more than a few looks and be questioned as to why he was wearing a knife harness, but he already had two umbrellas at home (which he never really used, but he decided to ignore that). He glanced inside the shop he was standing next to and saw that they were carrying a few plastic ponchos. 

After quickly buying one and wrapping it around his messenger bag, he stepped out into the heavy rain. Another thunderclap made him jump. The artist darted down the street until he reached his shop. He fumbled with the keys for a moment before getting the door open and sliding inside. 

He headed into the back room and peeled off his wet clothes, putting clean, dry ones on. He walked back out into the main room with his bag, leaving his knife harness in the back. 

Fushimi sat down in his chair and looked outside. The storm was still raging and the rain hit the front window. _Misaki…. Is Misaki out there?_ he caught himself wondering. _What if he is still out there? His apartment’s rather far away from the restaurant._ He grabbed his PDA to text or call Misaki, but he stopped himself. I’m getting too clingy. I need to back off. 

He was going to put it down when he changed his mind again. He clicked on Misaki’s contact. The PDA said “outputting” so he put it on speaker and set it down on the counter. 

He picked up. “Saru?” A loud clap of thunder and pattering rain could be heard on Misaki’s end. 

“You’re still in the rain,” he said bluntly, pulling out his art book and his pencils. 

“Oh really?!,” Misaki said sarcastically, but Fushimi could tell that he was smiling. 

He flipped to a clean page and wrote on the top right corner. _Yata Misaki. October 27th._ “Why don’t you get out of it then?” He looked at the date and noticed how close they were to Halloween. _Hm…. I think I’ll take the day off. I usually get a lot of business that day, but maybe a personal day would be nice. It’s not like I’m going to see Misaki again until the JUNGLE party unless he comes over. And I’m sure that Totsuka will drag me over to Homra anyways._

“Well I can’t,” Misaki pointed out. “Hey, I just remembered. You have a car! Could you maybe please pick me up? Home is too far to walk to in the rain.” 

“You have a skateboard, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, but I just got it and I don’t want it to get all wet,” Misaki said, another clap of thunder sounding, “I just picked it up from the store next to the restaurant.” 

“Fine. Text me the address and I’ll be there.” Fushimi hung up before Misaki could say anything else. 

He grabbed his PDA and keys before heading out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I’m going to ask you guys for help. I’m going to need costume ideas for Homra members and for Shiro-Kuroh for Halloween. Ideas for everyone but Saru and Misaki (I have an idea for them of course) would be helpful. Thank you!  
> Ok. So back to notes. Oh god. I feel like I’m making Totsuka the mother of Saru and Misaki. He’s cooing over their date and helping Saru out with his hating how he looks problem. Saru with a big tattoo will look so cool! Misaki will think it’s sexy once it’s finished.


	6. "You’re cute when you’re scared.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween! This chapter is exclusively about Halloween. But please don't skip! Major plot is in this chapter. Cute sarumi throughout. Enjoy!

The box let out a loud click as it shut. “I’m done. You can look now,” the man grumbled slightly, leaving the bathroom. “Totsuka, you know I’m not a makeup artist,” he said to the gang member standing in the hallway.

“I know. But you do a good job, Chitose. You picked up a good skill before you joined Homra,” Totsuka replied.

The two talked as Fushimi slid his glasses on. His face felt oddly heavy, due to the fact that he wasn’t use to having makeup on his face. He turned to the mirror and saw someone different. He stared at his reflection. Right now, he didn’t care that he looked like a boogeyman—he was only relieved that he wasn’t staring back at Niki for once.

Fushimi didn’t realize that Totsuka was standing at the doorway until he spoke. “You look good, Fushimi. Chitose did a wonderful job.”

“Yeah,” the tattoo artist mumbled, watching his reflection. The first thing that would catch anyone’s eye was the dark stitches that started at the corners of his mouth and traveled halfway up his cheek. His face was a shade lighter, making his pale skin look even paler. The Homra member had put eyeliner and eyeshadow on him, making his eyes stand out against his face.

“Okay, now you have to get dressed! I found the suit at a discount store so I’m sorry if it’s a little worn. Mikoto found some barbed wire for the belt.” Totsuka steered him away from the mirror and into the guest room. “He melted the tips a little so they won’t poke you.” He smiled and shut the door, leaving Fushimi alone.

He looked down at the suit and frowned. Today was Halloween. As expected, Misaki and Totsuka invited him to come over for a Halloween party, and Fushimi couldn't’ve said no since he had already taken the day off for work. The biggest problem was that they wanted it to be a costume party. After Fushimi heard, he was ready to decline, but Totsuka had remembered that he had seen something at the discount store that might help. Now he had a costume.

Fushimi carefully got dressed. It wasn’t the most flattering choice. Black and white stripes started at the bottom of his pants and wound up the collar of his jacket. The barbed wire belt seemed cool. Fushimi was more impressed by the fact that the tips were melted than the fact that he was wearing it. He was forced to ditch his knife harness, which made him pretty upset, but Mikoto had told him that if anything went wrong, Misaki would protect him. (He had almost snapped back that he wasn’t a child, but it was generally a bad idea to say something like that to Mikoto.)

Fushimi finally turned and opened the door. Distant voices could be heard; the light voices of Anna and Totsuka were almost inaudible compared to Mikoto’s deep gruff one. The artist headed down the staircase, his heart pounding faster than usual. Questions began to pop into his mind. _Is Misaki already here? What if something happens tonight that I need my knives for? What if I make a fool out of myself? What if—_

Someone bumped into Fushimi, making him look up to see Mikoto holding Anna’s hand. Mikoto glanced at him. “You look nice, boogeyman.” He sent a half grin his way as he continued up the rest of the stairs, Anna taking out one of her marbles and putting it up to her eye.

He took a deep breath and walked into the bar area. The first thing he did when he walked in was look for Misaki. Unfortunately, the cute skater wasn’t in the room.

Fushimi jumped a little when he felt a hand land on his shoulder. Kusanagi was the one standing next to him. “Yata will be in shortly. I made sure that he’ll come a little later so you could get ready.”

“Uh… Thanks.” The artist nodded, glancing around the room. Akagi and Bandō (Mikoto had introduced everyone to Fushimi earlier) were putting up black and orange streamers… well, more like throwing them around the room because Akagi had gotten bored of hanging them up carefully. A black streamer roll bounced off of Fushimi’s arm as it was accidentally thrown his way.

“Sorry Mr.‘shimi.” Bandō picked it up and sent it flying back at Akagi.

“Oi! You better apologize to my bar!” Kusanagi left his side, his vampire cloak fanning out behind him as he went to tell Kamamoto off for throwing a purple streamer roll at the bar.

The artist sighed and made his way to the couch, stepping over Eric’s legs to sit down. The blond was lining up bags on the coffee table. He’d written everyone’s names on the bags. He angrily took his cap off. “[Fucking Kōsuke. Why did I agree to match with him?]” Eric mumbled to himself in English, putting the police cap back on his head after ruffling his hair.

Fushimi just shrugged. He tapped his fingers on his knee, rather impatient to see Misaki. He hadn’t seen him since he had picked the skater up during the storm. For the past three mornings, Fushimi had woken up expecting Misaki to come rolling into his shop and start yelling about wild ideas like healthy diets. But he didn’t. Misaki hadn’t shown his face once. _Maybe he’s been busy?_ Fushimi thought.

A soft jingle of bells went off as the front door was opened. “Yata’s here!” Kamamoto announced, ducking under Kusanagi’s arm to get to Misaki. Fushimi perked up at the sound of his name. Unfortunately, the only thing he saw was the orange of Misaki’s hair before Kamamoto, nearly literally, dragged him upstairs. “Let’s get you ready.”

“Hey. What’s the big deal? Why are you pushing me? Oi! Kamamoto!” Misaki’s voice grew distant as the fatty took him away.

“[Don’t be disappointed.]” Eric was looking up at Fushimi from the floor. “[We planned for you both to be surprised.]”

The artist scoffed. “[I’m not disappointed and I don’t want to be surprised,]” he replied in English, trying to hide the fact that he was a little upset that he couldn’t see Misaki.

The cop shrugged. “Well you are, so get over it.” he said, switching back to Japanese. He put the last bag onto the coffee table before getting up and heading outside to where his partner was.

Fushimi waited for Misaki to come down. He almost didn’t see Mikoto and Anna climbing down the stairs because he was so intent on spotting Misaki. He only became aware of the two when Totsuka exclaimed that Anna looked cute. Both Anna and Mikoto were matching. Anna was wearing a new lioness costume, while Mikoto wore yellow paws and a tail attached to his belt. Obviously he had ditched the mane, but that didn’t seem to matter since his hair was basically a mane already.

Light footsteps sounded on the stairs. _Misaki!_ Fushimi didn’t know why, but he got to his feet as Misaki walked into the main room. Misaki looked around for a moment before spotting Fushimi. “Saru! Um… Hi!”

Fushimi stared at him. Misaki was wearing the most ridiculous outfit that Fushimi had ever seen, but the artist couldn’t look away from him.

He was wearing a black tag-top, the collar hanging low on his chest. Bat-like-wings were folded up on his back and horns protruded from his forehead. But what made everyone pause and look at him was his booty shorts and the tail attached to it that moved as he moved. Misaki had his fists clenched at his sides. “Why is everyone staring at my ass?!”

A few people snickered. Fushimi was going to point out that the shorts made his ass look good, but he kept his mouth shut. A smirk had spread across his lips, making him look almost evil with the stitches.

“What?” Misaki demanded, his cheeks turning pink.

“ _cough cough_ incubus _cough cough,_ ” said someone in the room.

Misaki glanced down at himself, confused. “Incubus? I was trying to look like a demon,” he said defensively, putting his hands on his hips.

“An incubus is a sex demon, Mi~Sa~Ki~” Fushimi told him shamelessly. He was particularly glad that he wasn’t dressed up like Misaki—he certainly didn’t want anyone staring at him like that.

Misaki’s mouth flapped for a moment, trying to form words as his face turned beet red. “I-I-I…. I don’t look like an incubus. I-I didn’t realize that these shorts were like this when I got them,” he spluttered, tugging on the shorts a little.

“Too late now.” A hint of amusement made its way into Mikoto’s voice.

Misaki frowned and made his way over to Fushimi. “Chu. Are you starin’ at me too?” He flopped down on the couch.

The artist sat down next to him as the other gang members went back to business. “What do you think?” He smirked again, wanting to tease him more.

“You might as well of,” Misaki scoffed. “You look decent, at least.” He scooted closer to Fushimi as Chitose decided to sit on the couch next to him.

The few gang members from outside came in and situated themselves around the room, only about half of them dressed up. Kusanagi walked out into the middle of the room. “Shiro and Kuroh from the tattoo shop will be joining us later. For now, here are the plans…” The bartender/vampire went over the plans, which pretty much consisted of the times for the haunted houses, which were optional, and when to be back at the bar.

* * *

“Yata, Fushimi, hurry up!” Totsuka called from a few meters away, waving and laughing. The safari photographer was holding a old-fashioned video camera in his free hand. He had chosen his costume so that he could match with Anna and Mikoto, although Mikoto had taken off his paws and tail.

“Yeah. We’re coming.” Yata held his bag tightly in his hand, picking up the pace.

They were out trick-or-treating. Most of the guys didn’t want to go, but Anna and Totsuka had insisted that everyone come and get some candy. Totsuka had thought of a challenge—whoever got the most candy would get a month of free food and drinks at Homra bar (Kusanagi hadn’t agreed to this, but it was nearly impossible to say no to Totsuka). So they all went their separate ways. Yata and Saru got stuck with Totsuka, Mikoto and Anna. Saruhiko had refused to go at first, but the skater had dragged him out anyways.

Yata looked up at Saruhiko. He was wearing a grumpy face, which made Yata a little upset. “Don’t worry. This will get fun in no time,” the skater said suddenly, wanting to lift the artist’s mood.

“Sure it will,” he replied doubtfully, putting his empty hand in his pocket.

“It will.” Yata assured him. “Let’s catch up.” He grabbed the taller man’s elbow and walked quickly up to where the others were.

Anna’s head bounced up and down as she skipped over to some stores. During Halloween, stores and businesses usually had a person or two at the door to greet them with candy. It was a great way to get business; while the kids got candy and socialized, the adults shopped or looked into the company. Win-win, right?

The lioness spotted a brightly lit store and skipped over. The others followed her. “Trick or treat,” the little girl said, looking up at the man.

“Welcome to McRonalds. I’m Sadao Maou.” The man smiled and placed some candy into her open bag. He glanced up. “Oh. Some for your friends too?” Anna nodded and moved to the side so the McRonald’s employee could give the others candy.

Saru had half-thrusted his bag towards Sadao while Yata opened his bag up with a smile. They all got candy and the employee returned their bags to them.

Sadao gave a warm smile as they walked off. “Hope to see you again! Happy Halloween!”

“You too!” Yata waved back and was looking down into his bag to see what he had gotten when Totsuka lightly hit his hand. “What was that for?” He pouted a little.

Totsuka walked backwards to talk to Yata. “We’re going to see what we got once we get back to the bar, remember? We can’t have you and Fushimi here trading. That’ll just mess it up!” he said cheerfully.

Saruhiko half-heartedly shrugged. “It’s not like I want to trade anything with a sex demon.”

“I’m not a sex demon!” The incubus let out a huff.

“Yes you are.”

“Well if I am, then call me the real name.”

“Sex demon is another name for an incubus,” Saru informed.

Yata cross his arms. “Ok, Mr. Know-it-all, then try to explain to me where incubi come from.”

“It comes from a legend about a demon that has sexual intacorse with a woman in her sleep,” the boogeyman told him, seeming to finally relax.

The incubus frowned. “Well I don’t do that so I’m not an incubus.”

“Virgin.”

Yata glared up at him. “Shut up.”

A gruff voice interrupted their bickering. “People are looking at the both out you.” King had stopping walking and was glaring at them a little; Totsuka and Anna had gone on ahead.

“Huh?” Yata looked up to see that most of people around them had stopped to watch him and Saru bicker. A small flash went off and someone took a picture. A few girls giggled and pointed at the shorter man.

Saru let out a irritated _tsk_ and pushed past Yata, following the other two. He slumped more in his walk than before, a sign that he just gotten more unhappy.

Yata frowned for a moment, upset at himself. He had embarrassed Saru in front of the crowd. “Come on, King. The others are waiting for us.”

Mikoto and Yata walked back to the others. As they neared, the skater noticed that Anna’s bag looked much heavier than the rest of theirs. A smile was on her lips as she held up her bag for Mikoto to carry while they walked between shops.

Totsuka laughed lightly, seeing Saru’s frowning face. “Smile, Fushimi! It’s Halloween!” He held up the camera, filming him. “You know what? How about after we finish a street or two, we go to the Haunted House. Would that cheer things up?”

 _Nope._ Misaki tensed. Haunted houses, and more specifically ghosts, were his second biggest fear. Last year he had almost cut off the circulation in Totsuka’s hand because he was squeezing it so hard out of fear, although he had continuously denied both that he was scared and that he had been holding someone’s hand.

“You okay, Misaki?” Saruhiko was looking down at him. “We don’t have to do it if you’re scared.” A shitty smirk slid across his face at his obvious discomfort.

“I’m fine! We’ll do it!” Yata told him, not wanting to give up his pride.

* * *

After a couple of hours, they made their way over to the Haunted House. Yata walked close to Saruhiko’s side, already anxious for what was in store.

As they approached the house, a man walked up to them. “Welcome. I would like to ask for you to put your bags to the side for this house. If you would just kindly put them on this table…” He pointed to the table and they dropped their bags onto it. Mikoto’s bag made a louder thump than expected; Yata had spotted Anna giving Mikoto some of her candy but had decided not to tell anyone about it.

The man opened the front door. “Now, right this way. But no more than four at a time is allowed.” He glanced at them all. “Sorry, but one or two of you are going to have to wait until the others are done before entering.”

Yata looked at Saru to see if he wanted to go in first, but he had backed off, leaving the others to go in. He still looked like he was bored with all of the nonsense, so Yata took a deep breath and said, “Saru and I can go in after you guys. Is that okay?”

Mikoto and the other two nodded, so the haunted house coordinator let them in and retreated behind a fake tree to sit.

Yata and Saruhiko were suddenly alone. The incubus was quiet for a while before asking, “Hey. Did you even want to come to this party?”

“Do I have to answer?” he responded, surprising him. Yata had expected an outright no by watching his attitude.

“No, I guess.” He sighed.

He answered anyways, “I did and I didn’t. Halloween was never my thing.”

“Why?” Yata asked innocently.

Saruhiko stuffed his hands into his pockets, lightly kicking a rock on the ground towards Yata. “I…. Halloween is just a stupid holiday where people dress up as someone they’re not and feed off of candy. The kids have fun with friends and family. It’s not like it’s a holiday made for me. Hell, no holiday was made for me.”

Yata kicked the rock back to Saru. It bounced softly off the ground, making a slight clicking noise. “Okay then. You didn’t want to go around and get candy like other kids. That’s fine. If you don’t want to do that we don’t have too.” The rock bounced back his way so he kicked it back. “What do you mean by ‘no holiday was made for me’?”

Saru didn’t look at him, just continued the rock kicking game. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Yata knew that something was up, but he didn’t ask about it. Saru would only surrender that information when he wanted to, Yata knew that much.

After a few minutes, the coordinator came back. “It’s you guys’ turn. Just go inside and don’t touch anything.” He opened the door for them. “Enjoy.”

The door snapped shut behind them. Saru started to walk ahead without him. “Don’t leave me behind!” Yata whined, catching up to him.

The incubus looked around the hallway they were in, the candles on the walls letting out a small crackling noise. As the pair walked in front of a door, a loud murderous scream sounded, making Yata jump and unconsciously grab Saruhiko’s hand. His heart was pounding hard against his rib cage.

Saru didn’t even seem to flinch at the scream, nor shake off Yata. He just went ahead and started walking again. “I thought you said you didn’t get scared.”

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Yata countered, trying to hide the very obvious fact that he was scared.

The next door was open so Yata peeked inside. What he saw made him give Saru’s hand a death grip and his face go white. A kitchen table laid in the room with a woman’s body on it. A butcher’s knife was skewered into her head. Blood ran down her face and onto the floor. The incubus’s eyes grew wide.

After Saru snapped Yata out of it, they turned and walked up the staircase at the end of the hallway. The floorboards creaked as they climbed up the steps. As they reached the top, a hand popped out of the broken stair at the top. Yata yelped a little and squeezed Saru’s hand again. Saruhiko just let out a small laugh.

The next hallway was mostly silent except for the scurrying of the mice in the attic. Yata knew something was coming up next, he could just feel it, like a small prickling at his spine. He saw the next door. _Maybe another scream? A vampire popping out? A ghost walking through?_ he thought wildly, getting more scared by the second.

But nothing happened. No screaming, no ghost, no vampire. Yata held his breath for a moment, fear taking over him so that he half-clung to Saru’s arm. “Wasn’t something suppose to happ—”

The door behind them slammed open and a hairy beast ran out of it towards their direction. It’s arms were outstretched and covered in hair, the long fur attached swinging back and forth.

“ _SHIT!_ ” Yata screamed, and started to run down the hallway, dragging an unamused boogeyman after him. They flew down the staircase at the end and into the night outside.

Yata checked to see if the beast had followed them outside—it hadn't—before letting out a sigh of relief. The sound of laughter made him look up. Saru was laughing. _Laughing._ His hand was covering his mouth as he shook.

“What’s so funny?!” he asked the boogeyman.

“Geez. You’re cute when you’re scared.” Saru was cracking up.

“What?” _Did he just call me cute?_ He didn’t knew if his heart was still beating hard from the haunted house or from what Saru had just said, but at the moment he didn’t care. He had completed his goal for the night—make Saru happy.

Saruhiko calmed down a bit. “And I thought you didn’t get scared.”

Yata rolled his eyes, then glanced around. “Where are the others?” He didn’t see anyone at first, then he spotted Totsuka with his camera from around the corner. “Found them.”

Totsuka walked over with their candy bags, Mikoto and Anna following. “How was it?”

Yata shrugged and Saru smirked. “The sex demon was crying for mommy.”

“No I wasn’t!” Yata shot back defensively, then realized that they were still holding hands. He regretfully pulled his hand away, although he felt Saru’s hand try to pull his back.

Totsuka laughed. “Anyways, it’s time to head back to Homra. It’s getting late.”

* * *

“And the winner is…. Shiro! Third year in a row!” Kuroh Yatogami announced. Shiro let out a whoop of joy and hugged Kuroh. His bag had just been weighed by the ninja.

Fushimi was sitting at the bar, watching the others have fun with the candy and tell stories about what had happened earlier that night. His makeup was gone now that they were back; it made his face feel weird.

He watched as Misaki let out a laugh at something Anna had said and popped a hard candy in his mouth. The incubus turned his head when he felt Fushimi staring. “Saru! Come over here! We’re playing a game.” Fushimi shook his head. He wasn’t the type of person who liked playing games.

But Mikoto waved him over, so Fushimi couldn’t say no. He got up from his barstool and walked over to the couch before settling himself between Misaki and Totsuka.

Kusanagi put an empty bottle in the middle of the table. “So here are the rules for the people who haven’t played. It’s spin-the-bottle with pocky.” Kusanagi spun the bottle to demonstrate. “Anna is keeping score. The person who don’t pull away gets a point. If the stick breaks, no one gets points. You don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”

Kusanagi had retreated behind the bar and Chitose got up to do something, but everyone else stayed.

Eric spun the bottle first. It pointed at his cop partner, Kōsuke. He put one end of the pocky in his mouth and Kōsuke took the other end.

Fushimi watched as they played. Eric had pulled back first with a blush. The artist didn’t really like the game since it involved kissing. There was really no one there that he would want to kiss or allow to kiss him…. Well…. Maybe Misaki. That wouldn’t be too bad. He watched Misaki watch the bottle turn. He had his lip stuck between his teeth.

“Hey. Fushimi. It’s your turn.” Totsuka’s voice made him snap back to the game.

Fushimi grabbed the bottle and spun it, holding his breath. It’s spun around, once, twice, then slowed down at the third until it was directly pointed at…

… Misaki.

The incubus went bright red. “Me?” he asked in disbelief, pointing at his chest.

“Yes, you. Play or quit,” Anna said, tapping her pen on the clipboard.

Misaki gulped a little and picked up a pocky stick. Fushimi was also nervous. _Fuck. I’m gonna kiss Misaki._ The thought dawned on him as the skater shakily put the biscuit side of the stick in his mouth. _At least I get the chocolate._

Fushimi carefully bent towards him and put the other end of the stick in his mouth. Their eyes were lined right up so that Fushimi’s steel blue ones bore into the other’s amber. Fushimi felt Misaki put his hands on his forearms for balance before nibbling on the stick.

As they grew closer to the middle, the stick still not breaking, Fushimi didn’t know whether to close his eyes or keep them open. Hell, he didn’t even know how to kiss, let alone kiss with so many people watching. This would be his first kiss ever. Misaki seemed to be thinking the same thing because his blush became brighter and he hesitantly closed his eyes before their lips brushed. Fushimi froze when their lips pressed together, their noses bumping slightly. He didn’t know whether to pull back or press back into the kiss or even to move. But Misaki made the decision for him and pulled back.

The skater was blushing madly, and let his hands slip off of Fushimi’s arms. The taller man was speechless for a moment. “I… give Misaki the point.” His instincts took over, making him want to run away. Had he screwed up? No one was saying anything.

Fushimi bit his lip hard, standing up when Misaki spoke. “I’m done too! I-I… I don’t need the point.”

The artist quickly got out of his seat and bolted up the stairs. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was mentally paralyzed, still frozen at the moment their lips had touched. Fushimi shut the door behind him before throwing off his clothes and pulling on the ones he came in. His hands were shaking and he had no idea why.

“Hey. Fushimi. You okay? Can I come in?” A knocking sounded on the door.

Fushimi recognized Totsuka’s voice. “Yeah. You can come in.” He sat on the bed.

Totsuka slowly opened the door. “Are you okay? You ran off pretty fast.”

“I’m fine.” Fushimi ran his fingers lightly over his lips for a moment, still not believing that they had… kissed?… _no, it was more like an awkward brush._

Totsuka chuckled slightly and closed the door. “Yata is downstairs, he thought he did something wrong when you left to come up here.”

“Misaki did nothing wrong,” the artist said quickly. “It was me. I didn’t know what was happening.”

Totsuka walked over to him, still smiling softly. “First kiss then? It’s not something to worry about if you didn’t know what you were doing. Whether you like him or not is all that you need to think about.”

Fushimi thought for a moment before answering, “I like him. Definitely.” He breathed out, completely certain on his feelings.

“Then tell him that.”

Fushimi didn’t say anything, but got up and grabbed his stuff. “I should get going now. I have work tomorrow.”

The older man nodded and they headed back downstairs. Misaki was sitting at the bar, tapping his fingers on the wooden surface was Kusanagi talked to him. He had removed his wings, tail and horns. He looked up as they came down. “I’m sorr—” he started off, but Fushimi interrupted him.

“I have to go now.” He smirked to cover up the nervousness that had bloomed in his chest at the sight of Misaki. “Will you walk me out? Didn’t Anna say that it’s polite to walk your boyfriend home?” He recited what the little girl had said to them at the end of their first meeting.

“O-oh! Okay.” Misaki hopped off his stool and lead Fushimi outside to his car. They passed an ape sitting on the front steps.

The artist opened up his car and was putting his stuff in when Misaki spoke again. “Saru? Um… I’m sorry about earlier.”

Fushimi just gave him a look. “Didn’t I say that you had to walk your _boyfriend_ home?”

The shorter faltered for a second while what Fushimi had said finally clicked. “B-boyfriend? Like me and you?” He pointed to himself then to Fushimi.

He let out a sigh. “What do you think?”

Misaki was wide eyed and was staring at him, his face turning pink under the streetlight. His mouth flapped uselessly, enough for the artist to be worried that he had broken him. “Really!” he gasped, still not able to believe it.

Fushimi nodded, which made Misaki smile brightly and launch himself at him. The artist caught the incubus in his arms and hugged him back, relieved the Misaki was happy. “Oh, and Misaki?”

“Hm?”

“0.”

Misaki lifted his head off of Fushimi’s shoulder to look at him. “Really?”

“You ask too many questions.” He grinned, looking down at him.

Misaki giggled slightly and pulled back from the embrace. “I guess you have to get going now. See you later?”

“My candy is still inside,” Fushimi reminded him.

“Oh right. I’ll get it.” Misaki walked back to the entrance when the ape sprung up from the stairs, scaring the crap out of the shorter man. Misaki ran inside and violently shut the door behind him before the ape could follow him.

The ape took off its head to reveal the blond fatty, Kamamoto. He chuckled and waved to Fushimi before heading inside after Misaki.

_I hope I made the right decision by asking him to be my boyfriend._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: First of all, I would like to give credit for Saruhiko’s and Misaki’s costumes. Both costumes were based off other fan fictions that I love. Saruhiko’s boogeyman costume was from Give Me Your Best Roar by MisakillDatMonkey . You all should read it. I loved it and it even made me cry. Misaki’s incubus costume was from Hunger by EmeraldWaves . Cute pouty incubus Misaki is A++. Second of all, I keep on forgetting to add to the notes that Milestogo2 is helping me edit my fic. Thank you so much my friend!


	7. “Could we try it out?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary for Chapter 7: Fluff! Cute sarumi throughout. First official date! Homra kinda got into a fight with CATHEDRAL. Oops. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, another great big thanks to Miles-to-go2. Thank you so much for the help! :D

Fushimi tapped his pencil on his art book. His lip was trapped between his teeth as he looked at his drawing. He stopped tapping and added more feathers and flames to it.

The pale blue patch on his cheek and neck was bothering him; he could see it just underneath his right eye, his line of sight drawn to it every time he moved his eyes. A few hours ago he had gotten the first part of his dragon tattoo done by Kuroh, so Fushimi took the rest of the night off and came back home.

_“…. this looks like the work of Homra, Mikado….”_

At the sound of the gang’s name, Fushimi snapped his head up to look at the TV. He briefly saw a video of a plume of smoke and reddish-pinkish flame on the screen before it cut to an amateur photo of a group of people walking out of the burnt building.

The man, Mikado, talked as they showed the picture and video. _“Definitely. I wonder what they were after. Homra never makes a big appearance these days. Did they have a grudge against whomever they just fought?”_

The other anchor, Anri, replied, _“I don’t know. Like you said, Homra isn’t a big deal. They seem more like a peaceful group of friends than a gang.”_ The picture switched back to the news anchors. The two were sitting at a desk with the flickering screens behind them. “ _For the ones that just tuned in, here is a summary of happened. A gang, most likely Homra, attacked and burned a warehouse building just 20 minutes ago. No reports on what happened are out yet._ ”

The first thing Fushimi did was grab his PDA off of the couch. He thumbed through his contacts hurriedly before clicking on Misaki’s name. He let the phone ring while he watched the anchors continue discussing the attack. Fushimi was concerned that Misaki had gotten hurt, and wanted to know why Homra had stormed a warehouse in broad daylight.

Misaki quickly picked up. “Hey! Saru! What’s up?” A mumbling of people talking could be heard in the background.

“Why did you blow up a building?” Fushimi asked flatly without a single “hello” or “how are you?”, his voice dull from trying not to let the worry creep into his voice.

“Huh? Or yeah. That….”

“Misaki. What did you do?” He tapped his pencil on his art book again, frowning slightly at how he had drawn the flaming crow. A few days ago he has written _Yata Misaki October 27th_ on the top right corner of the paper. He often did this with clients. They would tell him their personal interests and he’d draw them, so the artist had decided to do something for Misaki in his spare time.

The skater chuckled nervously. “It’s kinda…. Um…. You know those guys that went crazy in your shop? Mr. Kusanagi found out where they were hiding. Apparently they’re part of this group called CATHEDRAL. They were one of the subgroups.” Misaki paused then asked, “How do you know about it?”

“TV.” Fushimi rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Oh. That makes sense.” Misaki laughed slightly.

A different voice came over the line. “Yo, Fushimi. Your boyfriend is fine.” Ah. Kamamoto. He, along with Mikoto and Totsuka, was one of the only people who knew that Fushimi had asked Misaki to be his boyfriend (though it didn’t really matter much since, knowing Misaki, he would blurt it out to everyone anyways).

Misaki snapped at Kamamoto to leave him alone before getting back on the line. “Yeah. I’m fine. So…. How are you?”

“50.”

“What the fuck, dude? I didn’t do anything!” Misaki shouted at him, confused as to why the price had just risen.

The artist clicked his tongue in reply. Misaki had made him worry. It might not be obvious, but Fushimi did have feelings. “Whatever, Misaki. I have to remind you about something.”

“What?”

“Our things are ready at the dress store. If you pick it up and meet me at Homra at 11 in the morning on the 5th, I’ll drop the price to 20.” Fushimi grinned—he could’ve just gotten the stuff himself, but having Misaki do it was easier. Okay, sure, he might’ve been using him, but it wasn’t as if he was asking him to drag his ass on the ground all the way to the beach and back before dusk for a piece of candy.

The skater instantly jumped on the offer. “I’ll do it!”

“Bye.” Fushimi was going to end the call when Misaki yelped,

“Wait! Are you free anytime this week?”

The artist thought for a moment before answering, “Only after seven at night.”

Misaki was silent for a second, then replied, “I don’t have work tomorrow night. Could I maybe come over?” He started to ramble on, a sign that he was nervous. “I-I mean if you don’t wanna we don’t have to. I was just thinking that since we’re b-b-boy—”

Fushimi interrupted him before he went on a stuttering spree trying to say “boyfriends”. “Fine. If you want to.”

“Yay! Okay. I’ll be at your place by seven tomorrow.” Fushimi could hear Kamamoto though the other end saying something about police before Misaki replied with an, “Oh shit. I have to go Saru! See yah.”

Fushimi pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the contact screen for Misaki. The phone beeped twice before “outputting” changed to “end”. He sighed and went to toss the PDA away before glancing back at the picture he’d selected for Misaki. It was a quick photo he had snapped at Halloween while they were making the rounds for candy. He had taken the picture right as an employee of whatever store they were at was putting the last of his candy into the incubus’s bag. Misaki was standing happily, a smile spread across his face with his bag held up and open for the man.

Fushimi was never the sentimental type. He never understood why people took pictures of each other. It wasn’t like pictures could do much for anyone. Sure, it was to save the moment, but if you didn’t remember it in the first place, what was the point? It was rather odd for the artist to willingly take a picture and put it as someone’s contact. Fushimi realized that even if he hadn’t asked Misaki to be his boyfriend, or whatever they were, he still would’ve taken the picture.

Now that he was thinking about Misaki, he couldn’t help but wonder why he even liked him in the first place. Fushimi was never the type of person to wonder about his sexuality and he had never even thought about getting a girlfriend or boyfriend in high school like most people did. It was never a concept that was important to him. But now, he suddenly wanted to be close to someone. It was…. weird how he’d become attached so quickly to the cute skater they called Misaki, as if there was something different about him. Quite frankly, it annoyed him how Misaki’s smile could lift his spirits—ones that he hadn’t even known were there. He’d never really experienced any happiness before—there had never even been a chance—but now with Misaki he finally could. Maybe that was why he’d risen to the occasion when Totsuka had told him to tell Misaki that he liked him. Maybe that was why he’d asked him to be his boyfriend even though he had absolutely no idea how to be a boyfriend, or really any type of friend.

The artist put his art book on the coffee table before getting up and grabbing his stuff to head out. He was going to the grocery store to get some more food before Misaki could complain.

* * *

Yata glanced up at the sky; it was getting dark out and a breeze made his arms and legs sting slightly. _It’s definitely getting close to winter._ He sighed and kicked off of the ground. Winter was never his favorite season. He liked summer a lot more. The sun, the beach, the bustle of kids—things like that got him excited. He was a more of an outdoorsy person, so summer was right up his alley.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and let the skateboard carry him to the front of Saru’s apartment building. Once at the front, he picked up his skateboard and headed up the stairs. “102,103,104…105! Yes,” he muttered to himself as he passed other apartments, remembering which was Saru’s from the last time he’d been there.

His nerves suddenly became hyperactive. _Okay. Calm down, Yata. It’s just Saru. It’s not like I was sent to the principal’s office. I’m not a little school girl,_ he told himself before taking a deep breath and pressing the doorbell.

The doorbell rang twice before the clicking of the locks sounded and the door opened up. Yata pulled the door open so he could see Saru. He was wearing the same thing he wore when he’d gone to Homra for the first time, his hands stuffed in his jean pockets.

“What’s that!?” Yata yelled, pointing at Saruhiko’s face.

“ _Tsk._ Why do you have to be so loud?” he grumbled. He pulled him in and shut the door.

Yata stared up at Saru. There was a dragon head tattooed to his face. He had a tattoo! “Saru. You have a tattoo.”

“I noticed,” he snapped lightly, walking into the living room. The TV was still on, and a game show was playing in the background.

The skater leaned his skateboard against the wall and followed him. “When did you get that? It looks cool! Does it keep going?” He stood in front of the taller man and went to reach for his collar to pull it down and look, then he remembered how Saru didn’t like to be touched and drew his hand back. “Who did you go to?”

Saru clicked his tongue. “Haven’t I already told you that you ask too many questions?”

Yata rolled his eyes. “Fine. At least answer the ones I already asked.” He stood on the tips of his toes to look at the dragon splayed across Saru’s right cheek and wrapped around his neck, disappearing under his shirt.

He answered the questions in order. “I got it yesterday. It’ll keep going down but we have to do it in steps. I went to Shiro and Kuroh’s.” Saru blinked behind his glasses, a light pink hint underneath his eyes.

Yata realized that they were standing pretty close together due to him staring at the tattoo, so he cleared his throat and stepped back. “So…. What do you want to do?”

“You’re the one who wanted to come over, you should have an idea of what to do.” Saru flopped down into the couch, his long legs sprawled out against the cushions.

Saru looked up at him over his glasses, his head tilted back slightly. His dark hair and tattoo stood out from his pale skin; his black glasses and eyelashes left shadows against his cheeks. Yata sucked in a breath. _Fuck. Why do you have to look so hot with that tattoo?_ He licked his dried lips unconsciously. “Uh…..” He cleared his throat again. “If we were at my place, we could play video games. I don’t know if you have any, so…..?”

He clicked his tongue. “You know we could just download some onto my laptop and our PDAs, right?”

“Oh. Right!” Yata chuckled nervously. “What do you have on your laptop?” Saru sat up and grabbed his laptop off of the coffee table, but as he moved his laptop Yata noticed his art book. “Hey. What’s that?”

The artist’s hand shot out and grabbed the art book before Yata could get a good look at it. “Just something I was working on… You can look at anything but this page.” He put his pencil into the page to mark where he wasn’t suppose to look.

“Okay.” Yata took the art book and carefully sat down next to Saru. He glanced at the artist quickly to check if he was bothered that Yata was sitting next to him, but he was too focused on whatever he was doing on the laptop to notice.

The skater flipped through the pages. “Whoa! This is so cool, Saru!” Yata exclaimed, a smile crossing his face. He almost flipped to the page that was marked with the pencil, but he held himself back. Maybe it was something important that Saru didn’t want anyone to see until he was done. “Can you do this on your laptop?”

“I lost the pen,” Saru grumbled.

“Oh….” Yata nodded and noticed that the marked page was the last one. “Looks like your book is full,” he commented.

A small nudge made him look up. Saru had his laptop angled towards him. “Want to play?”

“Yeah.” Yata put the art book onto the table. “What are we going to do?” He scooted closer to look at the screen.

“J-Cube. Mikoto and Totsuka are on. I challenged them to a friendly match. No points, no level jumps.” Saru leaned back and crossed his legs so his foot was at his other knee, making a perfect resting place for his laptop. “You’re going to be going against your king. Apparently Mikoto has been using Totsuka to get more points on this game.”

“Okay then.” Yata nodded and watched as Saru quickly sent a message to the other team that they were ready to start.

“Watch,” the artist commanded as the screen counted down.

**…3** **…2** **…1**

**GO!**

Saru’s fingers came to life. They clicked the keys at a faster rate than Yata could keep up. As each cube was solved, the laptop made a loud dinging noise and a new cube appeared upon the screen, which he finished before the cube could even fully appear. In no time, the three minutes were up and the score was Totsuka: 35, Saruhiko:

“44!” Yata cried out, staring at Saru in awe. “How the hell did you do that?!”

Saru gave him bored look, but Yata caught the side of his mouth twitch as if he was about to smile. “Easy. Let’s see how you do, Mi~Sa~Ki~.”

“If I beat Mikoto, you have to call me by my surname,” Yata bargained, annoyed that he still called him by his first name. Although…. it wasn’t too bad when Saru did it. The way he said it felt like he’d been saying it for years instead of a week and a half.

“Deal. I doubt you’ll win though,” Saru drawled, placing his laptop into his lap.

Yata quickly skimmed the rules and controls before accepting the next challenge.

 **…3** **…2** **…1**

**GO!**

The skater froze, looking at the cube in confusion. The cube just sat there displaying its colored squares—which had no apparent pattern to them. _How the hell did Saru do this?!_ he mentally cried out, pressing random keys to try to see what would happen. The cube flipped and flopped, the rows of squares sliding.

Time was up quicker than expected. Saru snickered, which Yata ignored. He glanced at the score and just tossed the laptop back into the taller man’s lap. Saru leaned down. “I guess I’ll keep calling you Mi~Sa~Ki~.” His breath tickled the skater’s ear as he drew out each syllable.

He suppressed a shiver that threatened to shake his whole body as Saru talked into his ear. “ _Okay_. I get it. I suck at the game.” He frowned.

Saru leaned back into his personal space, but not so far that their thighs and arms no longer brushed. “Anything else you want to do?”

Yata shrugged and glanced around. “A movie?”

“Fine. I’m picking it out though,” Saru announced, already scrolling through a movie list.

Yata watched him for a moment before speaking, “Do you want any snacks or something? If you have food I could make some.”

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” the artist mumbled before pointing at the fridge, already deep into the movie selection process.

The shorter man got up from the couch, reluctant at first since he liked the way they’d been sitting so close to each other, and headed into the kitchen. He opened up the fridge expecting to find it empty, but when he opened it, it was full of food. “Wow, Saru. You actually eat _real_ food!”

“ _Tsk_. I got it for you, so you could make something,” he said from his place on the couch.

Yata felt warmth crawl up the back of his neck. _Saru went out and got food just for me. He must’ve liked my cooking._ He felt quite honored and grabbed the food that he needed, leaving out most of the greens and fruit. He spotted Saru’s bag of Halloween candy on the counter; a bowl next to it was also filled with candy. Yata looked at the contents of both the bowl and the bag and deduced that Saru had picked out the kinds of candy that he liked and the kinds he didn’t like. He grabbed a piece of candy for both of them and put it on the side of the plates as a little sweet treat.

* * *

After fifteen minutes or so, Yata walked back over to the couch with two plates of food. Yata sat down and placed the plate in the taller man’s now-empty lap. Saru clicked the space bar on the laptop, then the movie started to play on the TV screen.

They both ate their food in silence except for the soft noises of their chopsticks hitting the plates, both of them focused on the movie. Once they were both done, Yata brought the plates over to the sink to wash later. When the skater turned to go back to the couch, he noticed that Saru had pulled out a blanket from next to the couch and was opening it up. He smiled softly and headed back over, sitting down next to him.

Saru draped the blanket over both of their laps. “It’s getting late, so… just in case we fall asleep,” he mumbled, as if he was trying to justify why they were sharing a blanket.

“Okay.” Yata shrugged, adjusting himself so he could pull the blanket up to his chin but still give Saru enough room. He was scared that Saru would get upset at him for being in his personal space.

The artist looked down at him for a moment before pulling him closer so that Yata was snuggled against his side. “More blanket,” he said, embarrassment creeping into his voice, which confirmed that he was blushing just as hard as Yata was.

“O-okay.” Yata nodded and moved slightly so that his shoulder wasn’t digging into Saru’s rib cage and he was cuddled up comfortably against his side. He wanted to disappear, flushing a deep color of red when he felt Saru’s grip tighten around him.

The shorter man tried to keep his attention on the movie for the next thirty or so minutes—which felt like a lifetime for him—but he kept losing track on what was going on because his thoughts got in the way. He noticed that Saru was acting a little weird. Not like he was sick or anything, but like he was forcing himself to be relaxed around Yata—his shoulders were oddly stiff and he kept on flashing him glances. _I don’t like this… the way he seems all tense but relaxed at the same time. It’s as if he’s making himself be kind. Okay, he wasn’t that kind when I got here, but that was somewhat expected. But what’s concerning me is the fact that he bought food for me (which he could’ve billed me for, but he hasn’t said anything about it yet), he suspiciously hid a sketch from me, and he brought out a blanket for us—which seemed like an excuse for us to sit closer. “More blanket” is a pitiful excuse, and someone like Saru would easily realize that he probably has another blanket in his room that he could use. Wait….. Is this all because we’re boyfriends or something?_

“ _Misaki_.” Yata blinked a few times, bringing himself out of his thoughts again at the sound of the other’s voice. Saru was looking down at him. “I said your name five times. Were you sleeping with your eyes open?”

“N-no. I was just….” The skater didn’t know what to say at first. He took a deep breath, drawing back out of Saru’s grip a bit, before talking. “You’re acting different. Like you’re trying to be a certain way around me. Yeah, I’ve only known you for a week and a half and I don’t really know how you act or who you are, but still.”

Saruhiko looked down at him, seeming genuinely surprised. “I’m not being different,” he muttered, clicking his tongue.

“Yes, you are,” Yata said defiantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and letting the blanket slide down into his lap.

Saru rubbed his face with his free hand, looking defeated. “Fine… since I can see that you won’t let go of the matter, I’ll tell you.” He bit his lip slightly and said, without looking at Yata, “After the Halloween Party I started to read up on how to be a boyfriend. Okay? I’m not good at this stuff.”

A deep red blush flashed up around Yata’s neck and his face. _Saru…._ He went to say something but Saru continued.

“I looked up stuff like, ‘how to act around your partner’ or ‘how to kiss’ or ‘what to do on dates’ and stuff. Most of it was for men and women in a relationship but…. this is stupid.” Saruhiko yanked the blanket off of him and went to get up when Yata caught his arm.

“‘ _How to kiss?_ ’” The skater looked up at him, trying to comprehend what he had just said.

“Yeah, Misaki. ‘ _How to kiss_.’ I doubt a virgin like you knows how so one of us had to look it up.” The normal Saru was back with the click of his tongue.

“Could we try it out?” _What the fuck, Yata? Why are you doing this?!_ he mentally screamed at himself as the words slipped out.

Saruhiko turned so he was standing in front of him. Yata’s hand slid off of his arm as he leaned over, his hand braced on the couch behind him so he wouldn’t fall. Yata sucked in his breath, his eyes flickering from the taller man’s beautiful eyes to his lips and back again. The way he was standing over him made Yata’s heart beat uncontrollably. Saru brought his hand up and put it lightly against Yata’s cheek, his thumb moving back and forth a bit by the corner of his mouth as if he was trying to figure out whether or not he should really do it, before moving his hand to his chin to tilt it up and keep it there. Saruhiko’s lips slid into a grin as he breathed, “Don’t touch the tattoo.”

Yata would’ve replied with some kind of remark like “no shit, you just got it,” but his mind was completely empty of all thought and reason. Saru leaned closer, closing his steel blue eyes as he went down to him until their noses brushed. Yata’s eyes flickered close as Saru tilted his head slightly and pressed their lips together.

The artist’s lips engulfed the skater’s as they kissed softly, neither of them pulling back when it deepened. Saru’s tongue lightly prodded Yata’s lips which he opened obediently. Warmth stirred in his belly as their breaths mingled, Yata following Saruhiko’s lead.

Saruhiko pulled back and gently wiped away the drool caused by their inexperience with his sleeve after a few moments. Yata’s face was flushed, trying to process what had just happened as he stared up at Saru. He hadn’t noticed that Saru had gently sat himself onto Yata’s lap during the kiss.

A loud boom from the TV made the two of them jump, snapping them back into reality. Saru let out a chuckle of relief. “So it worked.”

“… Oh. Yeah! It did.” The skater wanted to hide his face in his hands, now feeling awkward. “Uh… now what?”

Saruhiko shrugged. “We still have the movie to finish.” Neither of them seemed to want to move.

Yata looked up at Saru’s face, his eyes traveling back to his lips. Something in him was telling him to kiss Saru again, so he reached up and pulled him down for a second kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Misaki and Saruhiko kiss twice! Eheheheheh Saru must of felt so awkward when looking up all that dating stuff (and accidentally came across some gay sex guide which he didn’t tell Misaki because he didn’t want the blushing virgin to explode).
> 
>  
> 
> What you all have been waiting for is next chapter! JUNGLE Party! I was planning to do it this chapter but I decided that I’ll add CATHEDRAL so this fic is gonna be much longer than I originally thought it would be.
> 
>  
> 
> School already started for me. Yay! Kill me. Updates will be slower (Or might go away all together). Idk. Only time can tell.


	8. "Can I have a kiss goodnight?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JUNGLE PARTY! Yay. Cute Sarumi throughout.  
> Saruhiko gets a little drunk at the end.  
> Enjoy!

Fushimi rolled over into warm arms, ignoring the alarm beeping on the nightstand. A soft groan of waking sounded from the man cuddling Fushimi to his chest.

“Wake up! We have stuff to do today!” He realized that the voice was Totsuka’s, who was poking them impatiently; Mikoto let out a low grumble about letting them sleep.

Today was the day of the JUNGLE party. Yesterday, Misaki had gathered all of their stuff like he was told to do in order to keep his price at 20. The four of them—Fushimi, Misaki, Totsuka and Mikoto—had carpooled together. Because the party was in a different city, they had decided that they would stay the night in a hotel and explore the city in the morning. Well… only if they wanted to get up, that is.

“Why are you so full of energy in the morning?” Mikoto complained sleepily as Fushimi closed his eyes tightly and moved his arm, draping it over Misaki’s waist. He did not want to move. He felt content like this and he wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it. He tried to go back to sleep, letting his mind drift wherever it wanted to go.

The night that Misaki came over to his house had been the most nervous moment of his entire life. He had no idea what he was doing half the time. Fushimi had keep repeating over and over in his head what the websites had said about keeping your partner close to you, about what you should do on your first date, about kissing. _Kissing_ , something that Fushimi had absolutely no experience in—and when he had read over the website about it, it had made no sense. So when Misaki had asked if they could try it, Fushimi had almost said no. But when he’d looked down at Misaki, he’d thought fuck it and kissed him, which had been one of the best decisions he’d ever made. Misaki had obviously enjoyed kissing, so Fushimi had naturally liked it just as much. He’d sent him home once the movie was over, even though he’d wanted Misaki to stay. He had felt like it would’ve been awkward to keep him there any longer, and Misaki didn’t have anything to change into anyways.

Soft murmuring came from the other bed as Fushimi nuzzled his face into Misaki’s chest, wanting to sleep some more but unable to ignore the noise. After a few minutes, Totsuka chirped, “Alright you two. Get up. I’ve decided where we’re going to have breakfast.”

“Fuck off,” Fushimi mumbled, making Misaki laugh and draw his fingers through his hair.

“Nope. You guys can cuddle later.” Totsuka yanked the blankets off of them, making Fushimi shiver from the onslaught of cold air attacking his bare legs since he’d gone to sleep in only a shirt and boxers.

Misaki laughed softly again. “Come on, Saruhiko. Get up. We have stuff to do.”

“Fine,” Fushimi nearly spat, but he held back, fearing that Mikoto would beat him up if he was rude to Totsuka. He slowly untangled himself from Misaki and sat up, grabbing his glasses from the nightstand and sliding them on. He looked up at Totsuka, who was watching him with his hands on his hips. Fushimi glanced behind him to see that Mikoto had passed out while Totsuka was trying to wake them up, deep rough snores coming from the beast.

Misaki hopped off of the bed and dug through his bag, picking out some clothes before heading into the bathroom.

Totsuka looked back at his finacé and sighed. He jumped back on the bed and shook Mikoto roughly, whining about how he needed to get up already.

Fushimi got his clothes out of his bag once Misaki emerged from the bathroom, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with flames spiraling up both arms. He flashed a small smile at Fushimi before plopping down on the bed and pulling on some socks.

The artist went into the bathroom and shut the door. He glanced around and noticed that the bathroom was rather small. There were just two sinks, a toilet and a shower. Nothing too fancy, unless you thought of little free shampoo and conditioner bottles as fancy.

* * *

Fushimi tapped his foot on the ground, quite annoyed about how long Totsuka and Mikoto were taking in the candy store. Misaki had already picked out a few candies that Fushimi had paid for, so the shorter man was standing next to him.

“Saru! Look at that!” Misaki hopped up and down in excitement, pointing at a store down the street and pushing his candy into the other man’s hands.

“What about it?” Fushimi looked down at the excited skater next to him.

Misaki had already started to walk towards it. “They have skateboards in it. Can’t you see the sign? Urban Transportation! It’s a store exclusively for skaters and bikers.” He shot a laugh over his shoulder. “And I thought you knew everything.”

The artist rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t care less about that stuff.” He quickly sent Totsuka a text to let him know that they were going to the store before following Misaki.

Once near, Misaki pushed open the door with his free hand, the other occupied with his own skateboard. He held it open for Fushimi, who walked through it and looked around. The store seemed to be separated into four parts: the front right area where bikes sat on racks, most of them professional with only a few point A and point B bikes, the front left area where skates were displayed on shelves, spanning from in-line blades to roller skates, the back right side that held miscellaneous items such as safety gear, clothes, and insulated water bottles, and finally—

“Skateboards!” Misaki gasped and practically dragged Fushimi over to the left back corner of the store where shelves of boards sat upon the wall, a case behind a small counter displaying different types of wheels and trucks.

_Tsk_. Fushimi frowned. He had never tried skateboarding and quite frankly the thought of it bothered him, but seeing Misaki all sparkly-eyed over everything did change his mind slightly.

“Isn’t this one cool, Saruhiko?” He placed his old Homra board on the ground before standing on his toes to reach one that was above his head, his hands not quite reaching. Fushimi sighed and took it down for him after Misaki pouted and asked for help.

Fushimi looked down at the board; it was black with flames leaking from both sides of it. “I guess,” he replied, shrugging half-heartedly.

That seemed like a good enough answer for Misaki, as he took the board back and smiled. “I wonder if they can custom paint the Homra logo on it for me. My old one is kinda beat up. I’ve had it for four years.”

Fushimi picked up the old skateboard. There were obviously scratches and nicks in the board, as expected, but what was surprising was that there were no burns. Homra did produce flames and heat, right? So shouldn’t everything around them be burning to a crisp? Back at Fushimi’s shop, everything was the same. There were no burns or marks where Misaki and Eric had turned on their auras—and the same skateboard had been engulfed in flames. Also, Homra bar shouldn’t even exist since all of them had the power… but nothing was ever burnt. “Hey. Misaki. About your powers. Why isn’t your board burnt?”

Misaki looked up from the new board. “Why do you ask?” Fushimi just shrugged, so Misaki answered, “I don’t really know exactly why—no one does—but I can kinda control what burns and what doesn’t. Like if I put my hand against the wall and turn my aura on, it won’t burn unless I want it to burn. Oh, and something else—if you have an item, your knives per say, the knives will be enhanced: aim, speed, strength, sharpness, whatever. Hey, can I try it out?”

“Nope.” Fushimi shook his head. “You’re not touching my knives.” He didn’t need Misaki cutting himself or anyone else just yet.

“Anyways, that’s how it works,” Misaki concluded proudly.

A salesperson walked up them. “Hello. May I help you?” She was a blonde lady with big boobs and a smile upon her lips.

Fushimi glanced over at Misaki, who was predictably red. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. _Why does Misaki always act like a damn virgin? They’re just boobs. It’s not like they’re attacking him._ He mentally rolled his eyes at Misaki’s obvious innocence.

“U-Um… Hi! C-could you maybe find out how much it i-i-i-?” He failed at attempting to hide his blush and talk to the woman at the same time.

“Let me do it,” Fushimi grumbled at him and snached the board out of his hands, placing the old board and the new one on the counter. He turned back to the woman. “He was wondering if it’s possible to put the same design on this one—” he pointed to the Homra symbol, then pointed to where he wanted it on the new board “—onto this one. And also how much it would cost for new wheels and the paint job.”

“Oh. Okay. I can look at up for you.” The saleswoman went to the other side of the counter and typed something on the computer before answering. “Okay. So, the price of new wheels depends on the design, durability, and such, but the symbol would be about 10,000 if done correctly. So the price of standard wheels, plus new trucks, plus custom, plus new board would be….. around 35,000.”

The artist raised an eyebrow at Misaki, trying to see if he would react. He did. “That’s so much! I can’t ask you to pay for this, Saru! Put it back. I can wait.” Misaki backed up until he was out of sight of Fushimi and the saleswoman.

He shrugged. “Okay, then.” Fushimi rolled his eyes and stuffed some paper into his pocket. “Thank you.” He left the lady in search of the skater.

Misaki was hiding in the miscellaneous corner behind some fitted shirts, clutching his old skateboard to his chest. The artist rolled his eyes and pulled Misaki out of hiding. “You know I could’ve paid for that.”

“No! You’ve been spending too much money for me. I don’t need it. I can wait,” Misaki shot back.

“Fine,” Fushimi grumbled as he pulled him out of the store.

* * *

Fushimi tapped his fingers on his knee, impatient. Misaki was taking so damn long in the bathroom; everyone else was ready. Totsuka was fawning over Mikoto’s hair, trying to tame the messy mane so it would look halfway decent.

The artist got up and went to knock on the bathroom door, but when he raised his fist, the door swung open. Misaki stood there, wearing the red orange shirt that Fushimi had picked out that matched his eyes and hair perfectly. His hair had been combed down in such a careful way that it was obvious that if he put his beanie on, it would mess it all up. _Misaki….looks nice_.

After a moment, he realized that Misaki was staring at him equally as hard, his eyes skimming all over his face and clothes. “ _Tsk_. Stop staring.” Fushimi clicked his tongue, feeling awkward.

“Oh! Right.” Misaki blushed and pushed past Fushimi to grab his coat. “Are you guys ready?” he asked the other two.

Totsuka nodded and grabbed what he needed, plus the camera.

The four of them made it downstairs and outside. Once out of the hotel, Misaki yelped out “shotgun” before Totsuka, who had ridden shotgun every time so far on their trip. Fushimi had taken charge and accepted the responsibility of driving.

They were at the party in no time. The four of them jumped out of the car and walked up to the doormen holding the front doors open. Fushimi lead them to the counter where they got their passes.

The man standing there took their IDs from their PDAs, save for Misaki who still needed to get one. “Enjoy the party, Mr. Misaki and Saruhiko Fushimi and Mr. Totsuka and Suoh Mikoto,” he said, reading off of their IDs. He handed them passes that hung around their necks and let them in. Fushimi snickered at Misaki’s obvious discomfort at being called “Misaki Fushimi”. The skater rolled his eyes at him and slipped the pass over his head.

One of the servers wearing a bright green shirt and white coat walked over to the small group and asked them to follow him. They followed the man into a side room off of the original ballroom. He held the door open and bowed politely, letting them in.

Fushimi walked in and looked around. There was a small stage against the back wall while a round white table sat in the middle. A few people already sitting around it in white chairs. What first caught Fushimi’s eye was a certain man sitting next to a woman. He was sitting straight-backed, his glasses glaring slightly in the soft lights on the ceiling. His hands were clasped in his lap. The man seemed important, and Fushimi couldn’t figure out why he made him feel that way.

The man seemed to notice their presence and looked up. “Suoh.” His eyes went right to the man standing behind Fushimi.

“Reisi.” Mikoto sneered slightly at the man before walking over to the table and sitting across from him. Totsuka hurried after him and sat. _So this man is Munakata Reisi, number 3 in JUNGLE._

Fushimi raised an eyebrow and looked down at Misaki as if asking for an explanation for why the two knew each other, but the shorter man merely shrugged and walked over. He sat down next to Totsuka, leaving Fushimi the spot between him and Munakata.

The table was silent. Mikoto stared off into the distance, looking as if he couldn’t have cared less about being there. Fushimi felt awkward sitting next to them; he could feel Munakata’s eyes on his face. He was probably checking out his tattoo.

The silence was broken when the doors opened. “Thank you!” said someone with a light voice. Fushimi’s head snapped around, recognizing the speaker. Yashiro Isana and Kuroh Yatogami walked through the doors. Shiro spotted them and broke into smiles. “Hi!” He skipped forward and hugged Fushimi from around the shoulders, making Koruh roll his eyes.

Fushimi gently shook the boy off, aware of the fact that Shiro was oblivious enough to not notice that he had taken Misaki to the party, or just didn’t care. The artist glanced at Misaki to see if he was watching—he was, but he looked completely unfazed, so Fushimi assumed that Shiro just liked to hug people randomly. “What are you guys doing here?” asked Misaki quickly.

Kuroh lead his friend to the other side of the table to sit down. “You are most likely aware that there was a man named ‘Adolf K. Weismann’ on the top 5 list. He’s Shiro’s cousin, but because he lives in Germany, he allows us to go to these events for him,” he said politely.

Misaki nodded in understanding and leaned back in his chair. Silence settled over the table again before Munakata spoke. “Fushimi. I rather like you—”

“How do you know who I am?” Fushimi snapped at him, annoyed at how the man had been checking him out for the past five minutes.

Munakata was unbothered by Fushimi’s outburst; even more surprisingly, he smiled softly at him. “I looked at your profile on JUNGLE once you beat Gojo and while I was at it, I had Awashima look your background.” The man glanced at Awashima, who was apparently the woman next to him. She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, and what I was saying before you interrupted me was that I rather like your dragon tattoo. It’s nice.” Fushimi could’ve sworn he saw sparkles coming off of the man.

The artist shrugged, “You should be praising Kuroh.” He didn’t say anything about the “looking up your background” comment. He was actually rather scared that anyone else would find what Munakata had seen.

“Oh? He did it for you?” Munakata turned his attention to the other tattoo artist and struck up a long conversation.

The doors opened again. Fushimi glanced over his shoulder to see who’d entered the room. The man was sporting a black suit with a shirt that was nearly the same color as his dark green hair. A lighter green bird sat on his shoulder, swiveling its head to see all of them. The man was Nagare Hisui, the leader of JUNGLE and the player in first place. He walked over to the table and bowed politely. “Hello. I’m sure that all of you know who I am by now, but just to clarify for the one or two who might now know, I am Nagare Hisui, the creator of JUNGLE.”

A few people around the table said “hello” back, but Fushimi kept his mouth shut. He already wanted the party to be over. The artist was never good around big groups of people and social events.

Nagare glanced around the table at everyone and his bird took off with a loud squawk. A couple of feathers came off of the bird and floated down onto the floor. Nagare clasped his hands in front of his lap. “Normally, as Munakata and Shiro know, we don’t meet in this back room, but today is different. We have a new member in our group, Fushimi Saruhiko.”

Fushimi had to stop himself from giving him a glare—being presented to a large group of people was making him rather uncomfortable. Instead, he let out a low grunt and looked down at the table.

The JUNGLE leader seemed satisfied with his response, so he continued. “Also, we welcome Mikoto and Tatara. This is your first time here, right?”

“Yep.” Totsuka smiled cheerfully. “Sorry that we haven’t come before.”

The man nodded. “It’s alright. This is an optional party, so it isn’t like we’re forcing you.” He faced the rest of the group. “You all may enjoy the party now.”

Fushimi frowned, slowly standing up and pushing his chair in while his date jumped up with excitement and started walking towards the main room; the entrance to the party was behind the mini stage that lead to the larger stage in the other room. He let out a sigh, wondering how he could’ve ended up with a boyfriend who was almost the complete opposite of him.

The others followed Misaki, leaving Fushimi and Nagare to go in last. A loud squawk sounded as the bird landed on Nagare’s shoulder. “Sukuna! Sukuna! Sukuna!”

“There’s that asshole!” A loud yell sounded from across the room, making Fushimi turn around and glance at the boy. Sukuna Gojo stomped over, his teeth gritted in anger. “I found you!”

“I’m leaving.” Fushimi let out a breath and was turning to leave the back room when Gojo caught his sleeve, pulling him back down so they were nose-to-nose—which meant that Fushimi had to almost bend down into a bowing position, seeing as Gojo only reached his lower chest.

“Not while I got you here! Fucking asshole. You kicked me out of the top five. You’re gonna pay for that!” he growled, his bright green eyes shining with anger.

“Calm down, Sukuna. There’s no need to fight right now.” Nagare clasped a hand onto his shoulder, trying to keep him from attacking Fushimi right then and there.

Gojo growled threateningly before pushing Fushimi away. “Fine. But he’ll get what he deserves soon!” He shook off Nagare’s hand and walked away, a wake of anger and disappointment following him. “Come on, Kotosaka,” he called. The bird, Kotosaka, took off and followed Gojo, still crying his name.

The two men watched as the boy slumped off. Fushimi rolled his eyes at his retreating back while Nagare let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, he’s the one you kicked out, and he was the fastest point collector before you came along. I’m not surprised that he’s upset. Sukuna was always a spitfire.” The man smiled and lead the artist into the great room as he talked. “Although he’s a hotheaded person, he’s rather good at gaming and being creative, so I asked him to be on the support team. Ever since he joined the team, he’s been spending less time on the actual JUNGLE site earning points. Which was why everyone else could effortlessly beat him. Fushimi?”

“Yeah?” Fushimi glanced around the room. Servers lined the walls; a few were standing at doors and walking around setting things up. Card game tables were scattered around the room, which the artist assumed were to earn extra points for JUNGLE. A curved bar top sat in the corner, the bottles sitting on the shelves reflecting the light streaming from the ceiling. As a whole, the place wasn’t crowded enough to make the artist uncomfortable, but there were too many people for Fushimi to not be wary about who was there and why. Most of the guests were dressed in greens and blues, the few outlier colors looking like little fish trying to show off their bright scales against the dark water.

“What do you think about ‘missions’?” Nagare asked. “Sukuna came to me with an idea recently about these things he calls ‘missions’. I can send you a link about it later if you want to go talk to your friends instead,” the leader offered politely, noticing that Fushimi had spotted Misaki in the group near the bar and was now watching him.

Fushimi tore his gaze away from his date and nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” He departed from the man’s side and started to make his way across the floor, heading in Misaki’s direction. Misaki was wearing a great big smile, laughing softly at something Shiro had said. The sight made Fushimi’s heart skip a beat. The skater’s smile was as bright as the sun, and Fushimi wanted him to smile at him like that. A small wave of jealousy ran through his mind, but he stopped it before it could become anything drastic. Misaki is just talking to someone, calm down, he told himself, taking a small breath and walking up to him.

Misaki looked up as the artist came over. “Hey. What did you and Nagare talk about?” he asked, directing his attention from Shiro to the taller man. Fushimi shrugged to let him know that it was nothing, so Misaki continued. “Shiro was telling me something that I think you’ll like. Tell him!”

Shiro nodded and pointed to his lip rings. “I think you would look good with one of these.” His dug through his pocket and produced one. Fushimi raised an eyebrow at this, thinking that it was kind of odd that he was carrying some with him, but Shiro clarified himself when he saw the look. “It’s a clip-on. I’m trying to make business while I’m here since most of these people are from our city.” Shiro dropped one in the artist’s hand to look at.

The lip ring didn’t look too bad; it was just a simple black hoop. Fushimi bit his lip briefly, wondering how it might feel, before glancing around to see if anyone but Misaki and Shiro were watching. He sighed. “I’ll try it on.”

“Yay!” Shiro giggled and plucked the lip ring from his hand. He gently reached up and placed it on Fushimi’s lip. He studied him for a moment before breaking out into a smile. “That looks so good. Yata, look!”

The artist uncertainly turned around so Misaki could see. He watched as Misaki sucked in a breath, his eyes wide. _Did I do something wrong?_ Fushimi thought to himself as Misaki went silent for a moment before cheerfully saying, “Wow… That’s so cool! If you had two it would look even cooler. You have to see yourself!” Fushimi’s heart fluttered as Misaki complimented him. He felt his lips start to rebel against his promise not to smile.

A flash of blue caught his eye and he looked up to see Munakata standing behind Misaki. The man’s glasses glared slightly in the light. “Hm. You do look good with that, Fushimi.”

Misaki jumped, clearly not aware that the man had been standing behind him. Fushimi clicked his tongue and removed the ring. He stuffed it in his pocket, assuming that Shiro wouldn’t want it back. “Hmph.” He turned to move away, not interested in the man and his impressive aura. Something was telling him not to mess with the Scepter 4 leader.

* * *

Yata watched as Awashima placed down her cards. Her cold face remained unchanging as the others looked at her cards. “Royal Flush,” the dealer announced. The woman didn’t even smile as she received the hefty amount of chips placed in the middle.

The skater grinned, enjoying the atmosphere of people cheering regardless if they won or lost. He would be playing if he didn’t feel bad for Saru, who wasn’t able to play since he was only twenty.

Speaking of Saru… Yata left the table in search of his boyfriend. He looked around all of the tables, the stage, and even the bar, but Saruhiko was nowhere to be found. “Hm….” There was one last place: the back room. Yata climbed up onto the stage and walked through the curtains.

The skater looked around the room before spotting the artist sitting on the mini stage, his legs dangling off of the edge. “Oi. Saru, where were you?” Yata walked over to him.

“Misaki?” His head snapped up at the sound of Yata’s voice.

“Whatcha’ doing back here?” He sat down next to Saru.

Saruhiko shrugged, keeping his mouth shut. His lips were curved downwards in a distinct look of misery.

The skater could tell that he was rather upset. “Saruhiko, what’s wrong? You look like you’re about to cry.” Yata spoke to him in a soft voice instead of his normal excited one.

The artist opened his mouth then shut it again, as if trying to decide what to say. Yata watched as he fumbled with his hands, like he didn’t know how to hold them, until he flattened them and ran them over the top of his pants.

It was clear that he was uncomfortable, so Yata suggested, “You can tell me later if you want to. You don’t have to know.”

Saru didn’t say anything until he opened his mouth and let out a soft breath. “… Am I useless?”

“Huh?” Yata stared at him, completely confused as to where the question had come from. “You’re not useless, not one bit. Why would you think that? Did that man… uh, Munakata… ask you something?” Yata had heard Munakata talking about how he’d looked up Saru’s background when the two had first met. The skater had been worried that he was somehow dangerous to Saruhiko.

The man’s hands next to him had begun to shake. “N-no. It wasn’t him. It was—” He clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles turning instantly white.

Yata didn’t know what to say, so he just watched as Saru gulped and continued.

” _My fucking father_. He just won’t l-leave.” He breathed through his gritted teeth. “He just keeps on telling me that I’m useless and that I’m just like King.”

The skater’s eyes went wide. “Tell me where he is and I’ll kick his ass.” His blood started to boil at the thought of anyone upsetting Saru and insulting his King.

“He’s dead.” Saruhiko let go of his clenched his. His face relaxed into a look of defeat.

The faint smell of alcohol wafted into Yata’s nose. It suddenly clicked. Saru’s father still haunted him and was destroying him from the inside. It was so obvious that Yata couldn’t believe that he hadn’t guessed when he’d originally asked Saru what was wrong.

Yata grabbed one of Saru’s hands and slipped his fingers between his, trying to comfort him. “He’s dead—don’t listen to him. You are not useless. You’re. Fucking. Awesome.” He looked him in the eyes.

The artist nodded, accepting his boyfriend’s words. He gently pulled him closer and hid his face into the skater’s shoulder. Yata smiled softly reached up with his free hand, gently rubbing his back.

After a few minutes, Saruhiko pulled back and looked at Yata. “Hey, you okay?” Saru planted his lips where the words had just barely left. The kiss was short and awkward, but the artist didn’t look upset anymore after he pulled back.

Yata squeezed his hand and chuckled. “I think you’re feeling better now.” He quickly checked to see if anyone had walked in the room—no one had—before asking, “You want to go back to the hotel or stay here for a little bit longer?”

Saru shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

“Let’s tell the others that we’re leaving. Mikoto and Totsuka can come with us or they can get dropped off or something.” Yata stood up, pulling Saru up with him. The taller man wobbled a little at first, forcing the skater to catch him. “Come on.”

Yata lead Saruhiko to the other side of the stage. When he went to shake the artist off of his hand, in fear that other people would see them, Saru grabbed his sleeve. A look of desperation had crossed his face, like a little boy who didn’t want to leave his mother. Yata sighed and let Saru cling to his arm as they went to find the others.

–

“Saru, stop doing that,” Yata huffed as Saruhiko kept nuzzling his face into the shorter’s neck, his hair tickling Yata.

They were in the car on the way back to the hotel. King and Totsuka were staying at the party and since Saru obviously couldn’t drive, the two of them needed a driver. Yata had hesitatingly asked Awashima for a ride, which she accepted gladly. Munakata was going to go home with another of his employees who had also gone to the party. Apparently Awashima and Munakata weren’t a couple—the man had just chosen the closest person to him at the time.

The reason Saruhiko was annoying Yata was that Saru had wanted to sit up front _really_ badly, but also didn’t want the skater to leave his side, so they had to compromise by having Yata sit on the other’s lap.

Awashima glanced over at the boyfriends. “We’re almost there,” she announced, the hotel in sight.

“You remind me of a lieutenant, and the guy with glasses reminds me of a captain,” Saru suddenly blurted out. He stopped nuzzling Yata.

The lady nodded. “He would very much like to be called that.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while she waited for the light to change. “I’ll suggest it to him.”

Saru went silent, putting his chin on Yata’s shoulder. When the light changed, Saruhiko smirked. “You’re short,” he said into the skater’s ear.

Yata grunted, feeling that it would not be a good idea to try to argue at the moment.

Awashima parked and let them out, rolling down the window. “Oh, Fushimi. Happy birthday,” she called.

The man shrugged and grabbed for Yata’s hand, who gave it to him before he could complain.

Yata smiled at her. “Thanks for the ride. Good night.” _I didn’t know it was his birthday today_. He opened his mouth to say something about it, but kept quiet. Maybe that’s not the best idea right now.

As Awashima left, Yata steered Saruhiko inside of the building and into the elevator. They barely spoke on their way up the hotel and down the hallway to their room.

Yata opened the door with a swipe of his card and pushed Saru in before shutting the door. The taller man softly let go of Yata’s hand and walked into the main room. “Misaki?” he mumbled.

“Yeah?” Yata followed him before grabbing his bag and digging out a shirt for Saru.

“Mmmmmm…. Nevermind.” He shook his head and sat down on the bed.

Yata sighed and walked over to him. “Can you take off your shirt?” Saru just gave him a questioning look, so he rolled his eyes. “I have to get you ready for bed.” He reached forward and gently started to unbutton his shirt after sliding off his coat.

Saruhiko watched Yata undress him, a slick grin crossing his face. Yata saw the grin and went bright red, knowing exactly what he was thinking—which happened to be precisely what the skater was trying not to think about. “I’m just getting you ready for bed. Okay?” He got the shirt unbuttoned, trying not to look at Saru to avoid staring.

After getting the artist dressed and tucked into bed, he changed himself in the bathroom. He left the bathroom door open in case Saru needed something. Yata left the bathroom and walked over to the bed. He quickly set his PDA on an alarm before lifting the sheets and sliding into bed next to his boyfriend.

Saru was watching him, his beautiful eyes carefully observing. “Misaki?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have a kiss goodnight?” His voice sounded small, as if he didn’t know if it was okay to ask such a thing.

“Of course.” Yata smiled and scooted over to him, placing a small kiss on his nose, like his mother always did.

Tears started to well up in Saruhiko’s eyes, shocking Yata. “Why are you crying?” he asked, worried that he had done something wrong.

“I…. I’ve never gotten a kiss goodnight before.” The answer came out even quieter than a whisper.

Yata nodded and gave him a kiss on the lips, trying to stop the impending tears. “Then I’ll always give you one from now on, whenever we see each other.”

The artist smiled. “G’night.” His eyelids fluttered shut as he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find drunk!saru cute for some reason. Maybe because his feelings are more exposed and he doesn’t realize that what he is saying is private things and that he would never ask Misaki to kiss him goodnight if he hadn’t been drinking.
> 
>  
> 
> I really have no idea when this fic is gonna end. I don’t want it to end, that’s the problem. Well… I know where this is going but if I go that way, there will angst.
> 
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> Also, Thank you Miles-to-go2 for helping me with the fic and an extra special thanks for helping me form ideas for this chapter.  
> :D


	9. "Good morning and happy birthday!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fushimi's Birthday. Yay!! CATHEDRAL is at it again. Cute Sarumi somewhat throughout.  
> Enjoy!

Tenkei Iwafune leaned against the wall across the street from the JUNGLE party. His hand was tucked under his jacket, his fingers curved around his gun's handle. The older but rather athletic and flexible man (people assumed he was older than he was due to his looks, but he was 42, to be exact), scratched his stubble with his free hand. He watched as two people exited the party. The shorter man's arm was wrapped around the taller man's shoulders, whose arm was around the other's waist. 

The bright red hair was what gave Mikoto Suoh away. His size and strength were very noticeable, even in the dead of night. Iwafune fingered his gun, and was considering whether or not to shoot the man and his friend when his phone unexpectedly buzzed in his pocket.

It buzzed three times before Iwafune slipped it out and put it up to his ear. "Yo." 

"We did it boss. We just have _Fushimi's_ left. The other group is tackling that bar. If we finish early we'll go help. That bar owner is badass." One of the heads of his subgroups had called him. The shutting of car doors could be heard on the other end. 

Iwafune watched as Mikoto and his friend walked along the side of the building towards their car, the cigarette in the gang leader's mouth the only other source of light besides the street lamps. "Hurry up, sunrise is just a few hours away. Tell Blue Group to get on it. I don't know if they're going to a hotel or not." 

"On it, boss" The head hung up, heading off to do his assigned business. 

Iwafune walked along in the shadows, following the couple along the street. Neither of them noticed the CATHEDRAL leader was following them. Iwafune stopped, glancing both ways before stepping out and crossing the street. The gang members didn't see him as he slipped into the alley way. 

"King?" The tan-haired boy stopped at the car, letting go of Mikoto. 

"Hm?" The gang leader took the smoke out of his mouth and dropped it on the ground, crushing of under his heel. Mikoto moved so that the smaller man was trapped against the car. 

He moved so his arms draped over Mikoto's shoulders. "You know... We can't do this right now. This isn't our car and we have the other two in our room." Despite his words, he pulled Mikoto closer.

 _Oh my God. Are you two going to do this now? I was going to shoot you._ Iwafune face-palmed, he couldn't believe that this was happening right now, nor that someone could do _that_ with the red monster. He turned away so he couldn't see them making out. _Well, at least I know who you like now, Mikoto, even though I'd rather not._

He sighed and pulled out his phone, holding it out around the corner and taking a quick picture. Iwafune scratched his chin again, humming softly while walking down the dark alley to the other side. The light of his PDA cast shadows onto the walls as he studied the picture. All that he could see in the picture was Mikoto in front of the shorter man, pinning him against the car. The only defining features he could see were his pale tan hair, skinniness, and earring. 

He pulled up his list of Homra members and compared the most defining looks of Mikoto's.... lover (Iwafune rolled his eyes at the thought). He found the matching man in the list. 

**Tatara Totsuka**.  
**Age** , 23.  
**Birth,** February 14th.  
**Height,** 5'8.  
**Position,** Vessel  
**History,** Victim of Mari Shootings  
**Extra,** Power strengths are animal and blade condraing.

Iwafune smirked, sliding his gun out, the streetlights reflecting off of its silver surface. In a singsong voice, he said, "I found your weakness Mikoto-san. Let's have some fun." 

* * *

Pounding was the first thing that Fushimi noticed when he woke up. His head hurt. "Fuck," he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut tightly for a moment before opening them, and what he came face-to-face with was not what most people would expect to see when they wake up. A slice of cake was sitting on the nightstand. The white of the cake looked yellow compared to its pure-white frosting. 

The next thing he noticed was that Misaki wasn't in the bed. Fushimi sat up, his arm covering his eyes to block the light shining through the windows. "Misaki?" he called out. 

"Yata's in the bathroom," a chipper voice replied. 

"Hm." Fushimi flopped back down on the pillow, pulling his blanket over his face. Despite his pounding head, he tried to remember what had happened last night. The last thing he remembered was that he'd sneaked into the back room for some reason, but he couldn't remember why. He let out another groan, trying to recall something else from last night. Anything could've happened! 

He heard the bathroom door open and Misaki's light footsteps as he walked across the room. "Saru? 

Fushimi pulled the blanket down, revealing his face. Misaki was looking down at him. His hair was damp—he'd obviously been taking a shower.The man smiled down at him. "Good morning and happy birthday!" he said cheerfully. 

"Birthday?" Fushimi squinted, trying to see him clearly. His glasses sat on the nightstand; the cake was in the way of reaching them. 

"Today is your birthday, right?" 

Oh. Fushimi frowned, his heart sinking. Today was his birthday, November 7th—the day he dreaded. "Yeah," he grunted. 

"I have something for you!" Misaki said loudly, making Fushimi wince. "Oops, sorry." 

"Yata. You might want to leave him alone," Totsuka said from the other bed. Fushimi glanced over to see Mikoto laying on his stomach, dead asleep, while Totsuka did something on his laptop. 

The skater pouted. "Aw, but I want to give it to Saru now!" he whined, sitting on the bed. 

Fushimi watched Misaki frown, upset that he couldn't give Fushimi what he wanted to give him. He sighed and pushed the blanket off of him. "I'm going to take a shower, then you can show me." Misaki said a sad "okay," so Fushimi grabbed his glasses and went to get up. He stood up quickly, which made his head hurt even more, but he ignored it as he shuffled his feet over to their bags and pulled out his stuff. 

After his quick shower, he walked back out into the main room. This time he could actually see, having put on his glasses in the bathroom. Misaki was sitting on the bed now, a box with a bow in his lap. He was wearing something.... _nice. Misaki looks good_ , Fushimi thought. His clothes were much more fitted compared to his usual loose shirt and shorts. 

Fushimi walked over and sat down on the bed next to Misaki. He stared at the box in his hands, holding his breath. He wasn't aware of Totsuka filming them with his camera. 

Misaki was looking up at him happily. "Here!" He placed it in Fushimi's lap.

The artist carefully lifted the lip and placed it on the bed. He hesitantly reached inside and pulled out the gift. 

Fushimi didn't know what to say, or even think. He was astonished. No one had ever gotten him anything ever, not even a simple slice of cake, but this.... was too much. He couldn't even comprehend what was happening. 

A new art book, a set of professional pencils and a special digital pen sat in his hands. The art book was the same size as his old one but it wasn't a spiral, it looked like a real book, a golden ribbon peeking out from the bottom of the pages. 

"Do you like it?" Misaki's worried voice drifted into his stunned brain. 

"Uh... Yeah." Fushimi nodded, tearing his gaze away from the gift and onto Misaki. 

The skater let out a laugh of relief. "Maybe we could do something at the bar once we get back. Hey! What if we had everyone over and we could go the movies— " 

"No," Fushimi interjected, but Misaki just kept on talking.

"—and have a dinner afterwards or something. I could cook you dinner! I could even bake you a cake—"

"I don't want it." 

"—with some cool designs on it or maybe we could all have a beach day. It would be super super awesome!" Misaki rambled on, Fushimi's words not sinking in until the artist snapped, 

"Misaki! I don't want any of that. What I already got is enough." 

Misaki stopped mid sentence and stared at him. "Sorry...." he mumbled, turning his gaze to his hands sheepishly. 

Fushimi leaned down and gently kissed his cheek as a "thank you" before putting the gifts back in the box and standing up. He ignored Misaki turning red from kissing him in front of Totsuka and his camera as he picked up a few of the bags. "I'm going put the stuff in the car." 

"Let me come with you!" Fushimi was about to tell Misaki to stay in the room when the skater slid off of the bed and bounded over, grabbing his own bag. 

The artist rolled his eyes and opened the door, letting Misaki follow him down the elevator and outside. The car let out two beeps when Fushimi put the key in the door and unlocked it. He carelessly tossed his and Misaki's bags into the trunk after setting the box down on the back seats. 

"Oi. Saru." 

"What?" Fushimi shut the trunk and looked over at him. 

Misaki was leaning against the car, scratching the back of his neck. "Do you remember anything from last night?" 

The artist gave him a bored look. "No. What happened?" he drawled, figuring that nothing too drastic could've happened if no one had said anything about it earlier. 

The man shrugged, tugging his beanie down a little. "Nothing happened! You got a little drunk, then we went back to the hotel." Fushimi was about to ask what had happened _while_ he was drunk when Misaki changed the subject hurriedly. "We need to go get some lunch before we head back home. I think there's a ramen shop down the street." 

"Misaki, I couldn't care less about lunch. You're hiding something." It was so obvious that even an idiot could tell that Misaki didn't want to say what'd happened. 

"Am not! You're the one hiding things," he countered. 

" _Tsk_. Stop hiding things Mi~Sa~Ki~" Fushimi said, starting to get agitated.

The skater huffed. "Fine. You almost started crying because of your shitty dad and I made a promise. I also went out this morning and got you a present. Awashima mentioned that it was your birthday today. There you go." He crossed his arms, shifting his weight onto the car as he leaned against it. 

Fushimi raised an eyebrow, curious about the "promise." "What did you promise?" 

The skater looked away from him, his face getting characteristically flushed at the embarrassing thought that must've come to mind. The only sound that came out of his mouth was soft mumbling. 

The artist leaned closer. "I didn't hear you," he said in a teasing voice. 

"I promised you that I will kiss you goodnight from now on. That's it. Nothing happened. Alright?" he snapped. 

Fushimi stepped back from him, satisfied with Misaki's response, although... why did the subject even come up last night? The artist sighed, deciding to let the subject drop and get the other two down to the car. 

He told Misaki to stay in the car while he went to get the gang members. 

* * *

Saruhiko placed the plastic tray on the table with a soft _clink_ before scooting into the booth next to Yata. The man's nose wrinkled at the sight of the fast food, mumbling, "I thought you didn't want me to eat junk food." 

"Well, today it's a special treat, since it makes you happy. I thought it would be a good idea to use those coupons before Kamamoto does." Yata snached his burger off of the tray and placed it in front of him, his fries and drink following.

Saru let out a tsk and eyed his burger. The wrapping shined, the red logo of McDonald's standing out on the top. "I don't even like fast food," he spoke into his straw, nibbling slightly on it. 

"Fushimi! If Yata had made it for you, he would've put vegetables in all of it! Be grateful." Totsuka grabbed his and Mikoto's food, dropping his fiancé's down in front of him.

Yata heard Saru scuff and mutter something like “gross" but he ignored it. He carefully unwrapped his burger and took a bite. Vegetables were stacked high on top of the burger, unlike Saru's plain one. "Hey, Totsuka, what have you been doing with that camera? Can't you just take videos on your PDA?" The gang member had had it for about a few weeks now, but he'd never really told anyone about it. 

"But this is cooler than a PDA!" He put his hands up to one of his eyes, making his hands look as if he was looking through a lens. He moved his head back and forth slightly to show that he was recording something. "I found it at a pawn shop. They were selling it for really cheap so I got it. The video gets printed on a film and everything. I'm using it to record memories so that if anything happens to us, we have a lasting memory for someone to watch. I think that's a really cool idea, since I almost—what's wrong?" Totsuka had stopped mid-sentence, seeing Yata's expression.

His face was somewhere between "what the fuck" and "oh my God", both shocked and horrified. "Y-you have a-a-..." He nearly dropped his food on the table, wildly pointing at the side of Totsuka's face by his ear. 

"What?" The gang member ran his hand over the side of his face, puzzled as to why Yata was freaking out. He ran his hand underneath his ear, then froze. He slowly turned to look at Mikoto before saying softly, "King... I told you no marks." 

There was a dark hickey just below his ear, but it was far back enough so that his hair would cover it. King just shrugged, eating some more of his food. He looked like he really didn't care, but he said through his burger, "’orgot." 

Totsuka shot him daggers, but just sighed and fixed his hair so that it mostly covered it. He glanced across the table to see Yata still internally freaking out. Saruhiko was just watching him with a bored look. 

"Misaki. Stop being a damn virgin. It's irritating me." He chewed on the straw, glaring at the skater. 

"I'm not a virgin!" Yata yelled, making everyone in the restaurant stop and stare. A mother covered her little son's ears so that he wouldn't hear Yata's outburst.

The skater sank low on his seat, trying to hide himself behind Saruhiko, who stood up. He grumbled that he was going to the restroom before walking off and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Saru clearly didn't like being the center of attention. "H-hey, Saru. Wait for me!" Yata called weakly, sliding out of the booth and following him to the bathroom. 

Once inside the bathroom, Saru turned to him. "You need to work on your virginity problem." Yata was going to retort when Saruhiko put a hand over his mouth. "Whether you're a virgin or not, you need to calm it down. Got it?" 

The shorter licked his hand, making Fushimi let go of his mouth, before replying, "It's not my fault. I don't know why I get all blushy over everything. It's just that it's.... embarrassing." He frowned, leaning against the sink. 

Saru rolled his eyes. "If it's embarrassing, make it unembarrassing. It's annoying." He clicked his tongue irritatedly. 

"It's not that easy!" Yata whined, reaching up and running his hand through his hair to fix it after glancing at his reflexion. He had left his beanie in his bag. Due to the cold weather, he had opted for something more warming, a black button-up sweater over a white shirt. He also had his light brown cargo shorts on. Yata rolled up his sleeves before turning back around. 

"Whatever, Misaki. Just keep it under control." The artist was reaching for the door handle to leave when Yata grabbed his hand. Saru attempted to shake him off before he spoke. 

"Wait—" He stood on his toes and pressed his lips against his boyfriend's. Saru was shocked by the unexpected kiss, but he softened and kissed him back. They tilted their heads so they wouldn't bump noses, Yata adjusting their hands so their fingers were laced together. A soft pleased noise came from Saruhiko, surprising Yata so that he almost paused, but the noise made him inwardly shiver. He surged up into the kiss when he heard the sound, Saru placing his free hand on Yata's hip. 

Midway through the kiss, a ringing came from Saruhiko's pocket. The artist cursed under his breath, pulling back for a moment to silence the phone. Yata took this small chance to let go of his hand and reach up, cupping his cheek and letting his other hand slip into Saru's dark locks. The skater ran his thumb over the dragon tattoo before pulling him down into a rough kiss, both of them opening their mouths to deepen it. 

Kissing Saru felt so right. Like Yata has been missing something for years and had finally found it. Just the thought of them kissing excited him. He had been waiting for a moment when they were alone and when it was an appropriate time to kiss Saru, although... kissing in a bathroom wasn't the most appropriate place.

Intense buzzing filled the air around them, shaking Yata's wrist that was pressed up against the side of Saru's head. The artist pulled back from the kiss with a hiss. Yata's PDAWatch was vibrating, signaling that he was getting a call. "S-shit." Yata breathed, panting slightly from the inexperienced kiss. 

He glanced at the screen of his watch to see a chibi Kuroh pointing at the word "incoming". He didn't know whether to answer it or not, but Saruhiko uninvitedly reached forward and clicked the answer button on the side of the watch. Kuroh's voice filled the restroom. "Yata. Is Fushimi there with you?" 

"I'm here," Saru announced, his face still a bit flushed. 

There was a pause before the other artist spoke. "You need to come back. _Fushimi's_ was broken into last night. _White and Black_ and Homra Bar were attacked too. Luckily Mr. Sunglasses was there" (Mr. Sunglasses is what Shiro calls Mr. Kusanagi.)

The two of them looked at each other, shocked by the news. "We can be there in 15, Kuroh," Yata told him, pushing the door open and walking back to the table, Saru following him. 

"Good. I think your apartment, Fushimi, was broken into too. Shiro and mine was," Kuroh informed. 

"Alright." Yata roughly grabbed his burger and shoved it into Saru's empty hands to scarf down on the way back. "Meet you at Homra." 

"See you." Kuroh hung up. 

Totsuka was looking at them, confused. "What happened?" 

"We have to get back home _now_ ," Yata said sternly, his usual demeanor vanishing quickly. All of his attention now was to get home and see who had attacked them. 

Mikoto nodded and pushed Totsuka off of the bench, noticing his tone of voice and now acting accordingly. 

They were all in the car in the matter of seconds and down the road. Yata stuffed his much-needed food into his mouth as they went along. 

The car slowed to a stop in front of Homra. After hopping out of the car, Yata ran up to Eric and Kamamoto, who were guarding the doors. "Yo. What happened?" 

Kamamoto shrugged. "You better ask Kusanagi, it looks like he knows what's up." 

Yata nodded and pulled open the door, the other three following. The small tingling of the bell made Kusanagi and Kuroh look up from what they were doing. The bartender waved them over. 

"What happened?" Mikoto asked gruffly, glancing around the bar. No damage seemed to have been inflicted on the place. 

The bartender sighed, itching his neck as he started to explain. "CATHEDRAL came back out again, but this time they planned it strategically. My conclusion is that this gang has something against JUNGLE. As Kuroh told you, both his shop and _Fushimi's_ were broken into, as well as their apartments. It's clear that CATHEDRAL are targeting the people of the top five in JUNGLE. I'm assuming that they're doing to to cause fear." 

"How do you know it's them?" King asked, trying to get as much info as possible. 

"Their name was spray painted on the sidewalk." Kusanagi sighed. "I had a feeling that they would do this, so I asked Kamamoto to stay the night with me here..." 

Yata didn't hear what else the second in command was saying, he was too focused on the look on Saru's face. It was twisted in irritation and stress. From what he has told Yata, this had happened many times. 

A ringing made the skater look up. Kusanagi slipped the PDA out of his pocket. After glancing at the caller ID, he answered. "Hello, Seri-chan." 

Seri? That name was familiar. Very familiar.... wait! The JUNGLE party. That cold, stern woman that Munakata was with was named Awashima Seri. Yata was going to say something when Saruhiko flashed him a look to shut up. 

"Is that so? Well, tell me when you have any more information.... Okay.... Bye bye _mademoiselle_." He hung up and placed the phone on the bar counter. 

"Eh?!" Yata took a step back, shocked by the revelation that Kusanagi knew Awashima. "You know her! I thought you didn't know anything about Scepter 4!" 

"Yata.... This is not the time. I'll explain later. You better run after your friend." He pointed at the door. 

Yata whipped around to see Saru leaving the bar. "Wait!" He ran after him, bursting through the front doors and flying down the steps towards his boyfriend. "Hey. Where are you going?" 

Saru glanced down at him, his hand already on the car handle, ready to leave. "Where do you think I'm going?" he snapped, pulling open the car door and getting in. 

"Well, I'm coming with you." Yata yanked open a door and got in before the artist could object. 

Saruhiko turned around in his seat. "No. I'm going alone. You don't have to follow me everywhere I go." He gave him a deadly glare but Yata pushed past it, determined to stay with Saru. 

The skater took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. He said, "I know that, and I know you don't need protecting, but more of those guys are out there. I don't want you getting hurt, and if your apartment was broken into, you'll need a place to stay the night." 

Fushimi clicked his tongue, defeated. Without saying anything, he turned back around and started the car. Yata grinned, proud that he'd gotten the stubborn man to let him go with him. 

The car ride was mostly silent. The low hum of people talking over the turned-down radio could be heard. Saru parked the car on the street next to the apartment building, unable to park next to the building due to an expected obstruction. Bright police car lights pierced his eyes, making it hard to see when Yata first got out. 

The two of them walked up to the police cars. A few officers were gathered in and around Saru's apartment. The taller man sighed and lead the way to his door. Lingering behind, Yata spotted the spray-painted message that Kusanagi had been talking about. CATHEDRAL was written in blocky bold letters on the walkway under their feet. 

He hopped back up to Saru's side, who was talking to an officer. "Uh... Yeah. You can grab that. You just have to sign a form saying that the set wasn't stolen during the break in," the officer said. 

"Stay out here," Saru instructed the skater before walking inside. 

* * *

The trip to Misaki's place had been uneventful. They'd stopped at Homra to discuss a few things, and while they were there they were told that Scepter 4 had been attempted as well, but CATHEDRAL had lost. 

When they got to Misaki's apartment, the little gang member had gotten all excited about over stuff like playing video games, dinner, and some thought that sent him into a blushing, stuttering spree—which aggravated Fushimi enough for him to threaten to leave. That was enough to shut him up and get him to prepare dinner. 

"Saru! Here you go!" He set a plate down in front of Fushimi.

Fushimi frowned at the food; a small bowl of fruit was sitting next to the plate. After glancing at Yata's plate full of fruits and vegetables, he determined that it could be worse and wasn't worth arguing about.

Misaki happily sat down next to him. A smile sat on his lips as he ate. Fushimi's eyes lingered on his boyfriend's face for a moment. His bright orange-red hair curled slightly at the ends, framing his ears. There was a loose strand hanging in front of his eyes. Fushimi felt a strong urge to put it back with the rest of them, but he held back because that he knew that it would make an awkward situation. He tore his eyes away from Misaki and finished up his food. 

Misaki took both of their plates and put them in the sink. "Uh... Saru?" He had his back turned, rinsing the dishes in the sink.

"Yeah?" 

"I'm sorry your birthday sucked," he said softly while drying the dishes. There was sadness in his voice, as if he felt guilty for something. 

Fushimi was silent long enough for Misaki to check to see if he'd heard. "It's was.... okay," he muttered out at last. It has been more than okay. It had been the best. Yes, his shop and apartment were broken into and he was stuck with staying over at Misaki's for the night, but it was better than being alone or having his father around. He had gotten his first present.... ever.

Misaki sighed and put the dishes away before walking over to Fushimi. There was determination in his eyes, which surprised the artist greatly. _What is Misaki fired up about?_ Misaki got close up, putting his hands on his cheeks and putting their noses together so they touched. It was clear that he was trying not to act like a virgin like Fushimi had asked him to, because his blush wasn't blooming like a flower in June. 

"How can I make it better?" he whispered stubbornly. 

Fushimi got caught staring at his dazzling eyes, completely forgetting about Misaki's question and his unknown drive to make him happy. His eyes were, for lack of words, fucking gorgeous—a nice mix of reds and oranges, making a deep amber color. His pupils looked as if they were eating away at the amber, like the moon eating away at the sun during an eclipse. 

A small call of his name broke him out of his trance. Fushimi smiled and wrapped his arms around his waist, bringing him into a soft kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Short notes this time. Saru's birthday! Yay! It's kinda depressing though because this is first real birthday. But Misaki was there so that make everything happy and good. (Mikoto ended up eating Saru's slice of cake which Totsuka scolded him for.)
> 
> Another thanks to Miles-To-Go2!! :D  
> 


	10. “I… Stars. Okay? Stars.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less Sarumi fluff this chapter. Misaki’s past connection to the Mari Shootings are revealed.

A loud ringing startled Fushimi awake. The trilling noise was faint but the sound it was making was obnoxious enough to classify it as loud. Moving sleepily, Fushimi gently pushed a sleeping Misaki off of his chest so he could roll over and grab at whatever was ringing. The grabbing process was three times harder than it should’ve been because he couldn’t find the noise maker from underneath all the crap on Misaki's nightstand. He knocked an old skating trophy off of the stand as he grabbed the PDAWatch.

Squinting at the small display, he read “Inputting FaceTime” across the screen, a chibi Shiro hopping up and down underneath it. The answer button wasn’t working, so Fushimi quickly put in his administer code to answer.

A hologram bloomed from the PDAWatch, a screen displaying Shiro. “Hey. Yata, where is Fush- _oh._ ” Shiro was sitting on the other side of the screen, his shop in the background. “Haha, I’ve been trying to get you and Yata for the past two hours. You’re running late. I almost went out to see if you guys were alright.”

 _Late?_ A few rays of sunlight was filtering through the closed blinds, indicating that it was, indeed, late morning. “Is anyone there for me?” If no one was there, there would be no big rush to get to the shop.

“Nope.” He shook his head before looking behind him to where Kuroh was sitting. “Kuroh! Come look at this! Fushimi has bedhead!” Kuroh walked over to see what was going on.

Rolling his eyes, the artist went to turn off the PDAWatch, but the rustling of sheets caught his attention. Misaki had scooted closer to him, pressing himself against Fushimi’s side. His arm was draped across the taller man’s stomach. A soft muffled whine of “Saru” came from him.

Before the artist could turn off the FaceTime, Shiro took a screenshot of the two (this only known because Shiro announced it for everyone could hear).

Fushimi quickly shut it off, sighing. He had developed the PDAWatch right before his father had died from a mysterious illness. He could’ve made plans, patents, or even sell the idea to a big PDA company, but that wouldn’t have be the best idea. It was just easier to sell it online for a few bucks higher than a normal PDA would cost. Young Fushimi didn’t realize that he would soon be boyfriends with one of his buyers. He didn’t realize that one of the buyers would be snuggled up against his side with a small half-asleep smile on his face.

He poked his shoulder a few times before Misaki yawned and opened his eyes. “What’s up?” he asked, his voice was still thick with sleep.

“Work. So get up.” Fushimi lightly pushed the stubborn man who wanted Fushimi to stay in bed. Misaki gave up after a few pushes and let out a soft growl of “get off or I’ll find another place to sleep,” after which Fushimi quickly let go.

He slid out of bed and grabbed his jeans and armbands out of his bag, sliding them on. After putting his glasses on, he went into the bathroom to fix his very messy hair. He glanced up at the mirror, expecting to see Niki, but he wasn’t there. He almost laughed out loud. He was free, or at least somewhat free, of his father— _finally_. After years of suffering from not being able to have a mirror nearby, he could finally see himself. The dragon tattoo and glasses covered his face in such a way that he didn’t look like the demon, and he’d never see that face again.

With a smile spread across his face, he fixed his hair and got his knife harness on. He walked out of the bathroom and over to the couch to get his messenger bag. He checked to see if his stuff was still in there before putting the strap over his neck.

As he was deciding that he should tell Misaki goodbye before leaving, the skater walked out of his room, fully dressed and sporting his skateboard. “Where are you going?” Fushimi asked, adjusting his bag on his side so it wouldn’t hit his hip awkwardly.

“I have a job too. I have two jobs to be honest.” He rolled his eyes, a smug look on his face.

Fushimi smirked, getting excited at the thought of teasing him. “If you worked hard enough to get a good job, you wouldn’t need two lame ones.”

“I never had a chance, okay? I didn’t do good in high school… as you know.” His smug look changed into a sheepish one.

The artist sighed, opening the front door. “Come on.” Misaki nodded, following him to the car after locking the front door.

The boyfriends got into the car, Fushimi driving and Misaki riding passenger. As they headed towards Homra, Fushimi glanced at the skater. He was wearing a bored-like face, clearly trying to hold back whatever he wanted to say. Fushimi turned his attention back to the road when he asked, “Remember what I said last night?”

“You said a lot, so you have to be more specific.”

They had spoken all of last night, even past midnight. It was… surprising how easy it was to talk to Misaki once he settled down. All Fushimi had to do was listen and provide input when needed. Misaki was nice enough to not push him to reveal sensitive details, although Fushimi had given him information about his family. About his CEO mother who had practically dropped baby Fushimi into the arms of his (as Misaki called him) “dipshit of a father”.

Misaki had even told him things about his family, how his parents had divorced when he was six and that he has a brother and sister who were only half related to him. The skater had felt so alone that he had nearly bullied a group of kids into forming a “Yata-team”.

And they had talked about other things, things like school, hobbies, Misaki’s debt, and even how Misaki joined Homra. It was a very nice, peaceful night. The thought had crossed Fushimi’s mind that they were in Misaki’s apartment alone and that they could do _things_. But no, they couldn’t for several reasons—which weren’t relevant right now.

“I… Nevermind, I didn’t tell you, but… what if this CATHEDRAL thing goes out of control? Like… what if-f our friends get hurt or something.” He had pulled his knees up to his chest; the tone of his voice was low and he was looking woebegone. Creases had appeared in his forehead, a sign that he was upset.

Fushimi shrugged slightly. “If we stop CATHEDRAL, then they won’t get hurt.” It was true, if they were stopped then nobody would get hurt. After all, so far nobody had gotten seriously hurt because of CATHEDRAL. Yes, they’d broken into Fushimi’s shop and could’ve hurt or killed him, but they didn’t. And all of the other attacks hadn’t included any deaths or major injuries. It was just a gang causing trouble.

Misaki fell silent, which was rare. This made Fushimi worried, so he glanced over to see what was wrong. Misaki was sitting in the curled up position, his forehead rested on his knees. “Misaki” Fushimi tried his name but he didn’t look up. There was no doubt about it; something was wrong. The change of mood, the weird question and the huddle position were obvious signs that something off was up.

He quickly pulled over into an empty parking space before unbuckling himself and turning to Misaki. “Hey. What’s wrong?” A soft whine escaped him but nothing that explained why he was like this. “ _Misaki_ ” He reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“… I don’t want it happen again…”

“What happen again?” Fushimi asked, his worry increasing. “Misaki. What’s wrong?”

“Just take me to Homra.” His response was in short breaths, as if struggling to breath.

“After you tell me what’s wrong.”

He shook his head slightly. Fushimi sighed and sat back in his seat, heading off to Homra.

During the ride to the bar, Misaki relaxed a little and brought his head out from his knees. He was biting his lip hard and had his eyes trained on Fushimi.

* * *

Yata was… fearful. There was no other word to describe it. He didn’t want it happen again. Never, never again. That year of his life was the worst year ever.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to keep his breath steady and his thoughts empty. He was listening to the low hum of music coming from the car, trying to match his breathes to the beat of the music before opening his eyes back up.

When the skater looked outside, he realized that they were at Homra. He could feel Saruhiko’s eyes on him, making his skin prickle slightly in worry. _Did he see me? Does he know what’s wrong with me?_ His thoughts were filled with questions, making him stall for a second before gulping slightly and opening the car door.

“Misaki. There is some—”

“Just leave me alone right now. Ok?” Yata snapped at him, frustrated. He knew something was up. No shit! This had been bad enough one time. Of course he knew something was wrong.

He looked at Fushimi. His face had changed from mildly worried to cold, offended that Yata had snapped at him. Yata unclenched a fist he was holding, unaware that his upsetness had made his aura spring up around his fist. “Sorry,” he muttered, leaning across the conceal and pressing his nose against his cheek.

Fushimi just let out a soft sigh. “I’m going now.”

“Yeah… see you tonight.” Yata got out of the car, grabbing his skateboard.

The artist didn’t say anything as he reached over and shut Yata’s car door. He drove off, leaving Yata alone in front of Homra Bar.

The skater held his board tightly as he walked inside. A pretty woman was sitting at the bar; she was obviously a customer because she kept glancing at Mikoto with a blush upon her cheeks. King was oblivious to this, as always. He never engaged with the consumers.

Yata was more interested in finding Totsuka than watching the chick goggle at Mikoto. “Where’s Totsuka?” he asked King as he put his skateboard in the corner where he usually kept it.

King simply pointed to the ceiling. Yata nodded and rushed up the stairs to the bedroom. He ran his hand against the wall in the dark hallway until he found the couple’s room. The skater took a deep breath and knocked.

The door opened up and Totsuka was standing on the other side. “Yata. What do you need?” He was wearing what he usually wore, a white button up with tan pants plus his soft smile.

Yata averted his eyes away from him. “I… Stars. Okay? Stars.” Stars was their key word.

Totsuka’s soft smile vanished and was replaced by a look of understanding. He let Yata in before shutting the door. “What set it off?”

He tugged on his beanie like he always did when he was embarrassed and wanted to hide. “I was worried about CATHEDRAL and whether this all will go out of control and you guys end up dead. Not just you but Saru or Anna or anyone! It was scaring me so much that I kinda curled into myself again.” His eyes started to burn, tears threatening to develop. “I wanted to tell Saru but I didn’t want him to get mad or anything, and it’s none of his business. This is my own problem. I… I just don’t want to go back there again.” His stomach hurt and he wanted to cry. He was scared.

“Calm down.” He could feel Totsuka’s gentle gaze on him. It was steady and loving, as if Yata was as important to him as Mikoto. “Nothing has happened yet. You’re not going to relapse into it again.”

Yata nodded stiffly. “And if it does?” he whispered.

“And if it does, we will work it out again.” Totsuka reached out to him and Yata leaned into his arms. The gang member hugged him, holding him to his chest like he always does whenever Yata was scared, nervous or sad.

Yata had kept it a secret from as many people as he could. After the Mari Shooting, he had changed for the worst. His anxiety had gone wild and depression had started to sink in. It was confusing how his anxiety worked. At the mere thought of his friends getting hurt or killed, he would curl up in himself and hide—yet he’d been about to join a gang. It had gotten bad enough that he would stay home for days at a time and not answer anyone’s calls, scared that when he picked up, it would be someone calling for help or reporting that a friend had died. Yata hadn’t been good at all. His normal healthy eating habits had turned to dust and his enthusiasm had crumpled like a wilted flower. His sun had not shined. Eventually Yata’s closest friends had come over to tell him that he needed to see someone. Yata refused every time until King had snapped that he was not okay and that he needed to get better to protect Anna and Totsuka. At that, Yata found the determination to go forward and try to get better. It had taken months to recover. A few months before he meet Saruhiko, he was told that he was clean of most of his anxiety. Quickly after that, he had joined Homra to do as King had demanded.

“You ok now?” Totsuka asked softly, rubbing his back.

The skater nodded and pulled back. “I should get back downstairs.” He rubbed his eyes before fixing his beanie. He flashed the gang member a small reassuring smile to tell him that he was fine.

The both of them went downstairs. Before Yata went to ask Kusanagi what he needed to do, he wanted to see if the woman was still staring at Mikoto. Apparently, she had said something to Mikoto to make the bartender double over in silent laughter and the lady blush. Mikoto was just giving her a questioning look with his cigarette half hanging out of his mouth.

Totsuka bravely walked over, placing his hand on Mikoto’s back and kissing his cheek. “What’s going on, baby?” This was the normal routine for whenever someone came into the bar and gapes at Mikoto. To be honest, it was kind of hard not to. He was muscular in the right places to make just about any man or woman stare, and his silent and kingly nature made even the most stubborn person stop. Even Yata had stared when he had first seen Mikoto.

King shrugged. “She was just wondering if I was single or not.” He took a last drag of his smoke before putting it in the tray.

Totsuka sent a rather rare fierce look to the woman, who was still blushing. “I-I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know.” She looked genuinely sorry and was going to get up to leave when Totsuka waved her back into her seat, saying, “It’s fine. Just remember that he’s mine.”

The woman nodded quickly and held her handbag close in her lap. “Sorry…” she apologized to the King.

Yata smiled at their interactions and asked the laughing bartender what to do. Kusanagi choked back the last of his laughs before answering. “I’m having someone come in at lunch. She has an obsession with red bean paste so I need you to go to the closest store supplying it.”

The skater nodded and grabbed his skateboard. He left with an, “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

It was around lunchtime when Saruhiko and the black-and-white duo walked into the bar. Yata watched as Saru let out a irritated click of his tongue when he stepped in and looked at him. His eyes didn’t let out the usual twinkle of happiness upon seeing Yata—they still had a cold look behind them from the morning.

Yata was opening his mouth to say “hi” or “I’m sorry” when Kusanagi started to talk to them and explained that someone from Scepter 4 was coming over with information about CATHEDRAL.

He let out a frustrated sigh and went back to folding Kusanagi’s glass-cleaning cloths and putting them away behind the bar. He had ended up abandoning his beanie and sweatshirt in the kitchen when he was making some food for a customer who had known about their secret menu. Now he was just wearing jeans and a black tee.

The bartender finished what he was saying to the tattoo shop owners and turned to an frowning Yata. “Good job. I think you’re done for now.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and went back on the other side of the counter. He shot Saru an uneasy glance before sitting on the barstool next to him. The others were distracted with each other so he spoke. “Um… Saru? I’m sorry I snapped at you this morning. I just needed to be alone for a moment.”

Saruhiko didn’t even looked down at him, making Yata assume that he wouldn’t forgive him until he told him what had happened. “Saru, are you going to make me tell you what happened?” He held his breath, not wanting to tell him about his anxiety.

“Yes.” The smallest of answers escaped his lips. Yata could read the stress written across his face. His face looked as irritated and bored as always, but the hardness behind his features could still be seen.

The skater nodded. “Later, not now. When we’re alone,” he whispered, turning his attention to the bar top so not to look at Saru. Prickles of uneasiness creeped along his spine as if a small spider was running up his back to hiss doubts in his ear, but Yata squashed the spider with the fact that if Saru would ditch him because he had anxiety problems, then he wasn’t worth it.

The artist just sighed and nodded, his fingers making a piano like movement as he drummed them again the bar top. Yata watched as his slender fingers made a small rhythm on the polished surface, each tap making a beat.

A tingling of the front door bells sounded as someone walked in. Yata watched as a woman walked over to the bar. Her heels clicking on the floor and a file tucked under her arm gave the impression that she was here on business as opposed to just a friendly drink. She sat down next to Saruhiko, flashing him a small smile, and placed the nutella file down.

This was Awashima Seri, a member of Scepter 4. She looked much different today than during the JUNGLE party. Her hair was down and she wore a more casual dress, making her look more relaxed than the cold front she had worn at the party. And more importantly, for Yata’s sake at least, her boobs weren’t as presented in an outward matter this time.

“Hello, Seri-chan. Nice to see you.” Kusanagi placed her usual drink on the counter in front of her.

The woman stirred her drink, mixing the paste that Yata had bought with the liquid. “I did what you wanted me to do, nothing more nothing less.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kusanagi chuckled and opened up the file. He examined its contents before sliding it over for Saruhiko to look at.

Yata peered over Saru’s shoulders at the papers. The top page identified CATHEDRAL’s leader, his credentials, and any additional information. The gang’s leader was Tenkei Iwafune. His picture was printed in the top right corner; his silver eyes were piercing. There was some information underneath the picture. Yata only caught a few words such as “JUNGLE”, “top fiver” and “creator”.

Saruhiko closed the file before Yata could finish looking and slid it over to Kuroh. The skater went to ask to see it but he snapped his mouth shut. It was clear that Saru was in no mood to interact with him, and it bothered Yata. He didn’t mean to get mad at him. It’d just happened. It wasn’t his fault that he has these issues and needed to talked to Totsuka.

Yata ignored the soft muttering between the duo next to him. He just wanted to settle back down into bed next to Saru. He didn’t want this CATHEDRAL crap. He didn’t want people to get hurt and die. He just wanted to kiss Saru goodnight and see his smile the next morning. I’m just tired of all of this shit. CATHEDRAL can go fuck themselves. _Why is my life so shitty? Why can’t I just have a normal family with Saruhiko and come to a normal bar with normal friends?_ Anger boiled through his thoughts, past and present problems and stresses coming all back in a rush—

“Misaki, you’re on fire. Misaki! Snap out of it.” Strong hands shook his shoulders, making Yata jolt back to the present. He was on fire. Not just the normal reddish pink aura but legitimate flames were leaking out of his skin, although the flames didn’t burn anything but small holes in his clothes. Yata yelped as water was flung at him from Kusanagi’s direction.

The fire was soon drowned by the bartender dumping water on him because he was worried about his bar (and Yata). Yata was left sitting on the barstool with his clothes and hair dripping, burn holes dotting his shirt and jeans. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and watched—even Anna, who was sleeping on Totsuka’s lap on the couch, woke up, her red eyes full of worry. The water quickly evaporated from the heat still on his skin.

Yata glanced at everyone’s expressions, each ranging from concern to shock. When his eyes met Saruhiko’s face, he froze; Saru was wearing a face of annoyance as if Yata’s fuming session had only bothered him, as if he wasn’t concerned about what had just happened. Yata turned and ran, jumping up the stairs two at the time and dashing into the closest bedroom.

After running into Mikoto’s bedroom, he collapsed on the bed with his chest heaving and wanting to cry. He couldn’t believe himself! He had flipped out in front of all of them. _All of them, even King and Saru. And Saru looked damn annoyed with me. If something is wrong, you shouldn’t give me a cold shoulder about it!_ Yata curled up in the bed, holding a pillow to his chest trying to calm himself down. Taking deep breaths and closing him eyes helped, but he couldn’t get the damn idea out of his head that they all were thinking that he was a freak or something for flaming up in the middle of the meeting. _And with Seri there! She was our guest and I just made her unpleasant visit more miserable._

Yata let out a soft whine and curled around the pillow tighter, trying to go asleep. He figured that if he went to sleep, they would just forget about him up here.

A few minutes went by and he had just started to drift off when someone started to stroke his hair. Yata assumed that he had imaged it because his mother use to do that to him when he was little, but the fingers didn’t feel like his mother’s, and how could she be at Homra Bar anyways? He opened up his eyes and turned to look up at whoever had started to pet his hair—and what he saw was surprising. It was Saruhiko. He didn’t look super annoyed, but he clicked his tongue irritably. “Anna ordered me to come up here and said something like “your red had dimmed” or whatever,” he mumbled, drawing his hand away from Yata’s hair.

The skater sighed and let go of the pillow, kicking it away from him. “Sorry about what happened today. I’m a loser.”

“I can see Misaki’s butt,” Saru deadpanned, pointing to a particular hole in his pants that had gone through his boxers as well.

“Saru!” Yata jerked the blanket over him to cover up his exposed butt.

Saruhiko’s lips had creaked into a rare smile and he started to laugh. Yata watched him laugh with wide eyes until he started to giggle himself. The laughing was only interrupted when Saru cleared his throat and asked, “So, what happened back there?”

Yata frowned and slid off of the bed, keeping the blanket around him, and made his way over to the dresser. He opened up the bottom drawer and pushed past a few shirts to retrieved a leather journal. He sat back onto the bed and tossed the journal into Saru’s lap. “Totsuka wrote everything down in here. He wrote today’s down in here too, except for what just happened.”

The artist unwrapped the string from around the journal and looked inside. The skater watched him with bated breath, nervous about what he might think or say as he read through it quickly.

“Is this it?”

“What do you mean?” Yata asked, confused as to why Saru would ask that when he had the whole story right in his hands.

He let out a soft _tsk_ and tossed the journal back into Yata’s lap. “I mean, why couldn’t you just have told me? This is a big deal. Did you think I wouldn’t understand? You know I couldn’t read your mind in the car. You could’ve just say that you had some difficulty in the past about Totsuka and I would’ve understood. He had mentioned that something had happened with you after the Mari Shootings.”

The skater shrugged, revived by the fact that Saru wasn’t that mad at him. “It’s not that easy! Only you can know, okay? … wait… you said Totsuka mentioned something to you? When did you guys talk about this?”

“The morning after the night when the guys broke into my shop when you were there.” Saruhiko shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Oh…” Yata nodded and put the journal back before sitting back down next to him.

A large silence had filled the room, except the soft muttering of voices from in the bar area. Yata didn’t like silence but he didn’t know what else to say. Saruhiko spoke for him. “So you’re really afraid that I might die?”

“It’s sounds stupid when you say it aloud but yeah. I am. That’s why I ran off after what you had yelled at me. It was more that I was shaken up and wanted to get away than from what you had said, but I was still mad at you.” The skater bit his lip and looked away, his cheeks burning with shame.

Saru sighed and stood up, turning to leave when Yata caught his hand. “Where are you going now? I thought we were having a moment?”

“Lame moment,” Saruhiko muttered, but then he spoke louder. “I was going to find your sweater so you won’t be walking around with other people staring at Misaki’s ass. I won’t like that.” He slipped out of Yata’s grip with a smirk and half ran out before the skater could kick him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing much to say. The Mari Shootings shook Misaki up too much. Oh, and some extra info: Misaki didn’t join Homra until after his 21th Bday. Yes, I know that is very late compared to [K] when he joined at ~15. Obviously the time line is a bit messed up on Misaki’s end because he didn’t meet Saru until recently. Totsuka’s near death/Mari Shootings are at the same date and time as in [K]. Misaki had just met Homra at the time when the shootings occurred and had rushed to Totsuka’s rescue to be scarred for life. After that and most of his problem, he had only joined because Mikoto wanted Misaki to protect Anna and Totsuka which he now does. This CATHEDRAL mess is screwing with Misaki and the nervousness about whether Saru is going to stay okay or not is making him relapse a bit. (Ok. Long notes but whatever)
> 
> Extra: oh wow, I just realized I’ve been spelling Mikoto’s name as Shou instead of Suoh. Ugh. I’m going to have to fix that. Please ignore the misspelling in the meantime.
> 
> Thank you Miles-to-go2 :D


	11. “Fushimi. Take my hand.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a quiet month since Saru found out Misaki’s issue and the last CATHEDRAL attack. In this chapter, Niki visits Saru in his dreams, teasing him and ruining his life as usual. Also, Iwafune makes an appearance.  
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read ending notes!

  
“December 9th” was written across Fushimi’s PDA screen when he turned it on. He let out a soft groan, telling himself silently to stop getting all sappy as he clicked the photos application to open it up. Rolling onto the other side of the bed, he scrolled through his photos. 

He had collected more pictures of Misaki over the past month. Luckily he hadn’t been caught, or it would’ve been an awkward situation to be in. Fushimi felt himself smile as he looked at them. He didn’t know why he was so lovesick over this kid. At first, it was hard to admit to himself that he really liked him and that it wasn’t just an odd drive to change his miserable life. He really liked him. Fushimi couldn’t pinpoint what he liked exactly, maybe his smile or his beautiful eyes or just how there was a soft pink to his cheeks when he gets excited, but he knew that he did.

Whenever he got separated from Misaki, he would get this itch-like feeling under his skin; the itching was so intense that it was like a tiger was trying to break out of his body and find the skater. It bothered him to be away from Misaki because he felt so content around him. Fushimi sometimes couldn’t resist but stare or kiss him whenever Misaki was around. There were so many reasons why he felt so connected to him, but to keep it simple, Misaki gave Fushimi something to look forward to each day. Now he didn’t have to worry about if something would happen to him (except for the goddamn annoying CATHEDRAL, but surprisingly nothing had happened recently save for them teasing Scepter 4), if his life would just be a train wreck, or if he was going to die alone.

“You’re not a blushing schoolgirl with a boyfriend, Fushimi. Leave that job for Misaki,” he muttered to himself as he turned his PDA off, but then a message appeared on the screen. “Speak of the devil.” He sighed.

The artist opened the message, which read: **Misaki: forgot to ask u earlier butt where u find Anna s present?**

Fushimi rolled his eyes at Misaki’s expected rushed and unedited response; he decided that he needed to consult Misaki about fixing his texting problems. **Fushimi: At a shop, Misaki. Where else do you think I did?**

**Misaki: u don’t have to b a jerk bout it.**  
**Misaki: I just want to know**

Yesterday was Anna’s birthday. Due to Misaki’s pleading and the fact that Fushimi had no grudge against the girl, Fushimi had gone out and gotten her a small red pouch to keep her marbles in. After giving her the bag, he had discovered that she used them to see color, since the only color that she could see was red unless she looked through a red filter. It had been a birth defect until she joined Homra and got her powers, causing her to see reds.

**Fushimi: You could’ve just said good night or whatever instead of making a long conversation. It’s late.**

**Misaki: but your awake tho! So let’s talk!**

**Fushimi: no ******

**Misaki: fine whatever goodnight Saruhiko**

**Fushimi: Night Misaki.**

Fushimi tossed the PDA onto the nightstand before getting dressed to sleep. While changing, he glanced down at himself and let out a breath of contentedness. His dragon tattoo spiraled around his body, its tail making a small curl at the hip. When Fushimi had shown Misaki the finished product, he had practically attacked him because he wanted to touch it so badly(and ultimately Fushimi’s body).

He slipped his shirt back on and crawled into bed. Letting out a faint sigh, he fell into a troublesome sleep. 

–

_Having dreams was not enjoyable for Fushimi. It was never fields of white flowers and warm sunsets like in the movies. Fushimi’s were always in that dark mansion with that demon leaning over him. To be quite honest, he used to take sleeping drugs to have a silent night. The only reason why he’d stopped was that it had stopped working normally because his body had gotten used to it._

_But tonight was different; instead of in the demon house, he was sitting on Misaki’s bed. The only sound in the room was Misaki’s faint breathing and the russell of the pillow as he shifted. Misaki was laying on his back, his hand under his black tank top as if he’d been scratching his stomach before falling asleep. A few strains of moonlight filtered through the blinds and onto the bed._

_Something bad was going to happen. No questions about it. Why else would it be this quiet?_

_To check whether Misaki could be waken up or not, he poked him in the ribs. Nothing happened except for a faint twitch of his lips. Seeing that Misaki couldn’t be woken up, Fushimi called out, “You might as well come out. I’m not stupid enough to think that I’m just here with Misaki.”_

_“That’s one thing you’re right about, my little monkey.” A shadow emerged from the closet as the man walked out. His evil smirk was sprawled lazily over his face. He was wearing what he would usually wear, black and grey clothing with dangling necklaces and bracelets of silver. “I haven’t seen you often now-n-days.”_

_“I know.” Fushimi sighed, he was done with Niki and all of his tricks. Even in this dream state, he was just done with his shit._

_“You’ve been spending too much time with that annoying brat.” Niki looked pointedly at the sleeping man._

_“I can’t argue with that.” Fushimi shrugged and stood up, checking to see if this dream world gave him knives to fight with if needed. But his hand came back empty, neither knives nor PDA. All he had was what was in Misaki’s room._

_Niki chuckled and walked up to the artist. Only at this moment, Fushimi noticed that they were the same height—which gave him another reason to want to stab him. They even had the same face structure and body type; the only clear difference were Fushimi’s singular tattoo in contrast with the ones that riddled his father’s body, making his skin look like a mottled mess of darks and splashes of light. They were clearly father and son, and Fushimi loathed that._

_“Saru~Hi~Ko~” he sang in a sing song voice, reaching forward and flicking his forehead just to see the reaction._

_“Could you just leave me alone for once?”_

_“Nope! This is my job to do. It’s a game. Annoy the monkey, get exciting reactions.” Niki laughed, poking him in the chest._

_He batted the hand away before glancing at Misaki to check if he was still sleeping. Niki noticed the glance and grinned in glee. “Oh? You have a boyfriend now, don’t you? I forgot to congratulate you.” The smirk and sneer were obvious implications on what was going to happen._

_“Yeah yeah. ‘How could a dirty little monkey be in love with someone? Do you really think he loves you?’” Fushimi recited the expected words, making Niki look at him in surprise._

_“So, you’ve already admitted that you are really my monkey now? Good boy.” Niki turned away from Misaki so that he was now facing Fushimi. He gently patted his shoulder as if he was a dog._

_Anger shot through his veins at the words “my monkey.” “I’ll never be yours and don’t fucking touch me. You’re dead and you can’t hurt me anymore.” A growl ripped out of his throat. It was true that his father couldn’t hurt him anymore. It was only a matter of whether or not Fushimi would let Niki keep hurting him._

_“You’re wrong about that my son. Why do you think I brought you here?” He spread his arms wide out, as if presenting the room for all to see._

_His eyes widened and shot towards the bed at Misaki’s sleeping form. “No. I’ll kill you.” Fushimi could feel the anger turning into fire, each lick of flame urging him to push Niki away and protect Misaki, but something was holding him back. He tried to move but he was stuck in one place. “Don’t touch him!”_

_“You’re sure about that? It seems like you’re stuck there.” A teasing laugh pierced the air as he turned abruptly and leaned over the bed. “What shall I do? Any suggestions?”_

_“Fuck off.”_

_“Good idea!” Niki gave him a menacing smile before sitting on the bed next to Misaki and sliding the blanket off of him._

_“Touch him and I’ll kill—” Fushimi tried to keep yelling but his father snapped his fingers and an invisible gag covered his mouth._

_Niki carefully brushed a piece of hair out of Misaki’s face. He cracked out into another bout of laughter before saying. “I’m surprised that you managed to get someone as cute as this, but as I have always expected, you were never a ladies’ man, were you? It’s not like I expected my little monkey to be normal. But ha! neither was I because I got stuck with you and your mother. It’s not worth telling you again but your mother never liked you—and to be honest, I doubt this boy does either—” Niki’s hand slid up underneath Misaki’s tank top just enough to brush the skin. Fushimi jerked and tried to get out of his bindings. “—remember when he suddenly dragged you to that bar of his to meet his people, a kind of people you don’t belong with? He didn’t want to talk to you like you had agreed upon but instead just wanted to show you off to that red monster as it you were his new toy.” His father flashed him a smirk before continuing to run his hand up underneath Misaki’s tank top, going slow to make the scene more antagonizing. “You’re exactly like the beast, my monkey. Do you need me to list them out? Say nothing if you do… oh right! You can’t speak so I’ll just tell you. Where should I start? Maybe with the fact that you’re both stinking little beasts that need to be put down—” Sleeping Misaki had let out a pleased noise and muttered something under his breath. A giggle of delight escaped from the man as he heard the noise. “Look! He thinks you’re me! How cute!”_

_As Niki kept running his fingers across Misaki’s skin, a fire raged inside Fushimi. Never in his life has he been this angry, this done, this irate with someone. How_ dare _he touch Misaki. How_ dare he torture someone by messing with their boyfriend. At this very moment, he could roast his father—no, his enemy—alive. “NO ONE FUCKING TOUCHES MISAKI.”

_As Fushimi internally screamed those words, small sparkles of ash fell away from him. Somehow he was burning the invisible wrappings. He had Homra’s powers! Reddish pink fire radiated off of him as his determination to attack Niki grew. Once the bindings were burned away enough, the artist literally leapt out of them and at Niki, who was too busy teasing at Misaki’s boxers to notice. With a loud thump, he collided with the man and pinned him against the bed. Misaki was still dead asleep as the two men grappled with each other for a moment before Niki let Fushimi pin him down. “I was right! You are like the red beast,” the older man giggled beneath him._

_Fushimi let out a growl. It didn’t matter to him that he was “like the red beast”. The artist had come to respect the man in a mutual way, with Misaki and Totsuka between them to bond them. Fushimi calmed for a moment, ignoring the giggles and sneers as he tried to focus on burning. It was inhumane to burn someone on purpose, yes, but wasn’t it also inhumane to ruin someone’s life?_

_A sudden buzzing filled the air. Niki’s grin fell quickly into a look of disappointment. “Aw. It looks like we will have to pause our game…and I was just getting excited! But I have to let you go. See you, my little monkey.”_

At the snap of his fingers, Fushimi woke back up. Sweat covered his back and his sheets were all over the bed; he had apparently been thrashing around in his trauma-filled sleep. The buzzing noise came from his nightstand where his PDA was wildly vibrating. 

The artist took several deep breaths to calm himself before picking it up and answering, “What.” 

“Finally! You answered! I - kinda - need -help.” Heavy breaths pounded through the speaker of the phone, matching the thumping of feet. Totsuka was on the other end, his voice unrecognizable for a moment because it was filled with panic, the opposite of what it usually was. 

“Totsuka, calm down. What’s happening?” Fushimi swung his legs off of the bed and went to stand up but his legs acted like jelly and let him flop to the floor. Damn nightmares. He forgot how it felt to stand right up after having a bad dream—his whole body was shaky and didn’t want him to move. 

“Follow - butterfly - outside your building” The thumping of feet grew louder every time Totsuka took a breath. 

Fushimi pulled himself off of the floor and over the closet to pull out his knife harness. “I’m going, Totsuka.” He pulled it on in a matter of seconds, dashing out of his room and to the door. 

“Y-yeah.” He started to pant heavily. “Hurry u-” Loud clatters and bangs reverberated from the PDA—it sounded like he’d fallen. 

“Totsuka!” Fushimi called through the speaker. “You there?” He flung the door open and ran down the walkway and stairs down to the street. The red butterfly was flying in circles, waiting for him like Totsuka had said. It fluttered its wings before flying down the street. 

A new voice spoke started to speak as Fushimi ran. “Who’s this? Oh, the screen says that you’re _Fushimi_ , the Fushimi Saruhiko, I presume.” The voice was deep and full of mystery but the artist guessed who it was. 

“Tsk What are you doing with Totsuka, gang leader?” Fushimi hissed, picking up his pace. The street lights and butterfly lead the way. 

“You know who I am? Good job.” A deep chuckle came from the man as a couple of clicks sounded. The clicks resounded in the silence, making the realization that they came from a gun more menacing. “I know that you know what’s going to happen, you’re a smart kid…” 

Fushimi drowned out the rest of his words now that he had spotted where Tenkei Iwafune was. The butterfly disappeared as they neared. He skidded to a stop in front of an ally and immediately threw a knife before even looking at what was happening. The knife flew through the air until it made contact with Iwafune’s gun. 

Iwafune was previously pointing his silver gun at Totsuka’s head before Fushimi had thrown his knife, knocking it away from its target. The man was dressed in priest-like robes, clearly demonstrating that he was the leader of CATHEDRAL as a priest was the leader of his church. Totsuka was held up by two of his goons, a bruise forming on his cheek. His eyes were wide and pleading for Fushimi to do something. 

“Let him go.” Fushimi knew that those three words wouldn’t make a gang member let someone go, but it was worth a try. 

“Aw. But the red monster must learn his lesson. You need to be taught a lesson too?” 

Stalling so that he could make some kind of plan, he said, “I’ve been already taught my lesson, thank you very much. What about you?” 

“Oh? Me? I’ve already learned. I learned when Nagare kicked me out of JUNGLE.” He shrugged and pointed his gun back onto Totsuka. When the man moved, Fushimi took his chance and threw a knife at him. Iwafune let out a cry of pain as the blade entered his side. 

The rest of what happened was a blur of blacks and greys, calls, and the stark red of blood. Somehow, Iwafune had managed to shoot Fushimi in the arm, which went unnoticed by him at first because he was trying to rip the man who was beating Totsuka off of him. The blood curdling scream of Totsuka still rung through Fushimi’s ears as the gang members ran off. Iwafune’s knife wound created a blood trail leading out of the alley.

With shaky hands, the artist pulled himself over to where Iwafune had dropped Totsuka’s PDA. He didn’t even look at Totsuka…he knew it was bad. He hadn’t seen exactly what the goon had done to him because he was too busy dealing with both Iwafune and the second goon—and he’d still been shaken up from his nightmare. Fushimi winced when he sat up, blood slowly dripping down his arm onto the dirty ground. He tore his eyes away from his arm and stepped one leg into the PDA. He called the emergency number before finding Mikoto’s contact under “King” and called it. 

“Hm? Totsuka? Why aren’t you back ye-” 

“M-Mikoto, go to the closest hospital. Just go please. We’ll be there in a few.” He could already hear the emergency vehicles flying down the street. 

There was a pause before Mikoto replied, “What happened to Totsuka?” 

“JUST GO OKAY?! JUST DO IT— ARH.” A huff of pain slipped through his teeth as he yelled at Mikoto. 

Without another answer, the man hung up. Fushimi rested his head against the wall as the ambulance parked and men came out with stretchers, a few police following in case the gang was still near. 

— 

Fushimi didn’t need to be told twice that Misaki would flip out about this. He knew that Misaki was sitting on the other side of the door waiting for him to walk out, probably crying or just sitting still while internally ripping himself apart. The artist didn’t want either of those. It was his fault that he couldn’t help Totsuka in time.

The nurse gave him a nervous smile before opening the door for him. “If you don’t mind, we need you to sign some things for us and the police will want to question you as well.” She had patched up his arm and gave him meds for his leg. Large bruises would be there in the morning but the meds took away enough pain so that he could walk properly. 

“Yeah okay.” He waved her off, his mind focused on Misaki. Fushimi looked across the waiting room. His heart creaked slightly at the sight of a few nice people gathered around the skater, trying to calm him. Next to him was Mikoto, who was staring at the door next to Fushimi’s with empty eyes. Fushimi went to say something, but what could he say? “I’m sorry?” “I failed and couldn’t stop CATHEDRAL from hurting him?” “I tried my best?” “I’m a…” _…stinking little beast that needs to be put down_ “because I couldn’t even save someone who needed to be saved?” 

His eyes flicked back and forth between Misaki and Mikoto before the younger looked up and saw him. His beautiful eyes were wide and tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Sar-Saruhiko?” he choked out, pathetically reaching out as if he could reach Fushimi from across the room. 

He forced his feet to move to go over to his boyfriend. Fushimi’s heart was heavy in his chest and he shuffled over to him. “Misa—” 

“Saru!” he cried out, grabbing him once he was close and dragging him onto his lap. 

“Ow! Misaki. Calm down, I’m right here. See?” He landed clumsily into the smaller man’s lap, bumping his leg on the way down. Misaki’s face was hidden in his good shoulder, still crying. “Misaki? I’m okay. Look at me.” 

The skater hugged him tighter, not letting go. “… I thought you died…” The muffled reply drifted from the crying man. 

Fushimi shook his head. “No, I’m okay. Just stop crying, okay? I have to…” He glanced to where Mikoto was seated alone, still staring blankly at the door. “Misaki. I have to do something. Please let go of me.” 

“What if you leave—”

Fushimi cut him off. “I won’t leave you. I’m just going over to _our_ king. I have to ask him something.” The artist gently pressed a kiss to Misaki’s hair before attempting to pull out of his grip. 

Misaki ended up letting him go but made him promise to come back over. Fushimi took a deep breath and walked over to King. He had thought about what he was going to do next ever since they were picked up by the ambulance. He stopped in front of the man. “Mikoto, I—” 

“WHY DIDN’T YOU PROTECT HIM? HE TRUSTED YOU TO SAVE HIM.” A roar tore out of the man’s throat, his hand gripping Fushimi’s collar and pulling him close. He had gone from empty and dull to raging and destructive quicker than the speed of light. A visitor had squeaked at the sudden aggressiveness but Fushimi didn’t even flinch, or even blink. This reaction was predicted and Fushimi had also flipped out when someone had threatened his loved one in his nightmare. If he and King were two of a kind, then here was the proof. 

The artist carefully and gently uncurled King’s fingers from his shirt before falling to the ground. He knelt on the ground before him with no shame. Someone might call him mad for being this relaxed around his man, but his heart was focused in this one thing. “King, I want to become your knight.” 

“Huh?” Mikoto looked down at him, mildly confused as to why Fushimi was suddenly kneeling in front of him. 

“I want to become stronger. If I had your powers, I could’ve protected Totsuka like I should’ve.” Fushimi had thought about it for a long time. He had seen Misaki and others use their powers several times and he saw a great investment in it. If he had these powers, he could be more than just a lonely tattoo artist wasting his life away—he could protect people and finally fight back. 

Mikoto flopped back into his chair. “Stand up. After I hear about Totsuka.” Fushimi obeyed and stood up. He flinched when Misaki came running over and bumped up against his messed up arm. He was still shaking but his tears had faded away.

As Misaki started to hug Fushimi, a nurse had walked out of the room. “Mikoto Suoh? Your fiancé is asking for you.” Mikoto rose to his feet and followed the nurse into the room. If Totsuka was asking for Mikoto, then he must be well enough to comprehend what was or had happened to him. 

While waiting for Mikoto to come back and reveal what had happened, Kusanagi and Anna arrived. The little girl walked in with her marble up to her eyes and a new black and red dress that she had gotten for her birthday. Kusanagi took the paperwork for Totsuka from a doctor walking by and sat down next to the boyfriends. During the wait, Misaki had calmed down and forced the artist to tell him what had happened. He was hesitant at first, not wanting Misaki to get upset all over again, but he ended up telling him what had happened and had let slip about his nightmare to keep Misaki’s mind off of Totsuka. 

Twenty minutes later, Mikoto and the nurse had stepped out of the room. “Smoke,” he mumbled to the bartender before walking outside to the smoking area, leaving a depressing wake behind him. 

“Mikoto.” Anna dropped out of Misaki’s lap and scurried after the man, grabbing his hand when she caught up. The pair of them went outside. 

The nurse sighed softly and looked down at the three men before her. Her crisp white uniform made a crinkling noise as she took the paperwork from Kusanagi. Her expression looked pained but also relieved. “I know this is very bad news but I can guarantee you that he is going to be alright. Tatara Totsuka has been blinded, temporarily or permanently—we’re not sure yet—by a head injury.” She gave Misaki a sympathetic look when as sucked in his breath and grabbed Fushimi’s hand. “Several other less serious wounds were inflicted by the attack, mostly from being stepped on and a few small knife scratches. But the rest aside, we are looking at releasing him within two weeks with check-ups following due to the head injury.” Hiyori—as her name tag read—gave Kusanagi a clipboard listing out things that he needed to know. “Mr. Mikoto has already been told about this. Tatara regained consciousness a while ago and had asked for Mr. Mikoto to come in. Tatara is still shaken up from what has happened and from finding out that he can’t see anymore, so I will ask you to find a place for the night. It would be easier for him if you came in the late morning. Thank you.” She bowed but before leaving and said, “If you need anything, just stop by the counter and ask for me.” 

The nurse walked back into Totsuka’s room, her long brown hair turning slightly purple in the light. Fushimi glanced down at Misaki, checking to see if he was still okay before saying to Kusanagi, “I'm… I’m sorry.”

The bartender looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t blame you, you tried your best. We all are a bit more on edge than usual because it’s close to the time when the Mari Shootings happened.” With a tired air to his voice, he said to nobody and to everybody, “This is what you get for going out at night, Totsuka.” 

Footsteps alerted the men of the king’s arrival, Anna still clinging to his hand. His free hand was extended towards Fushimi, flames wrapped around his fingers and palm. The flames danced in front of his eyes like a corba would dance to a flute, its body twisting and curling. 

“Fushimi. Take my hand.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok then. I really don’t know what I did with this chapter. This was going to be very very different. I was going to make the attack on Totsuka later (like after Christmas) but I ended up doing it here. I was originally going to have Misaki get hurt with Totsuka but I did it this way, oh well. I just kinda ruined precious Totsuka’s life by blinding and hurting him. Oops.
> 
> Oh, and Fushimi joined Homra. Yay! I’m glad that this doesn’t turn out like the manga/anime. It’s going to be really different because he has a reason why he is joining and that he is mostly comfortable with everyone now. 
> 
> I have this idea tho, what if I ended this fic here and started another one in Mikoto/Totsuka’s or Mikoto/Misaki’s views? That would be cool right? We can get the best of both ships and find out more on Mikototsu. Idk. You guys can decide for me. But, I have to admit, I find it easier to write in Saruhiko’s POV if you haven’t noticed.   
>  Or, maybe one chapter can be Mikoto/Totsuka and the next would be Saruhiko/Misaki, like every other chapter would be in the opposite pairing. That might be easier idk. Save me.
> 
> Edit: I've decided the do the last option, the every other chapter one. I've started writing chapter 12(1) already and I like writing in Mikoto’s POV.


End file.
